"Color, taste, and smell, smaragdus, sugar,
and musk,--
Amber for the tongue, for the eye a picture
rare,--
If you cut the fruit in slices, every slice a
crescent fair,--
If you leave it whole, the full harvest-moon
is there."
Hafiz is the prince of Persian poets, and in his extraordinary gifts
adds to some of the attributes of Pindar, Anacreon, Horace, and Burns
the insight of a mystic, that sometimes affords a deeper glance at
Nature than belongs to either of these bards. He accosts all topics with
an easy audacity. "He only," he says, "is fit for company, who knows how
to prize earthly happiness at the value of a night-cap. Our father Adam
sold Paradise for two kernels of wheat; then blame me not, if I hold it
dear at one grapestone." He says to the Shah, "Thou who rulest after
words and thoughts which no ear has heard and no mind has thought,
abide firm until thy young destiny tears off his blue coat from the old
graybeard of the sky." He says,--
"I batter the wheel of heaven
When it rolls not rightly by;
I am not one of the snivellers
Who fall thereon and die."