All night he wept unceasingly beside
His friend, who lay inert upon the bed;
At dawn they found that he who watched had died,
And lo! The sick man had been cured instead.
____________
A willow-branch reminds one that a youth
Can easily be bent towards the Truth;
Old reprobates a sterner fate require,
For they will straighten only in the fire.
____________
Observe this precept whenever you can –
Never make friends with an elephant-man;
For an elephant-man has a pet to keep,
Eating and drinking, awake or asleep,
And if you are friendly one day you’ll see,
When the elephant-keeper comes to tea,
That, not in the least by chance or whim,
The elephant will accompany him.
Then as soon as the animals’ through the door
You’ll notice cracks in the parlour floor,
And however much you may frown or stare
He’ll sit across-legged on an easy chair,
And swill your tea with his cumbrous trunk
Till you think ‘My Word, what a lot he’s drunk.’
And if you should offer a mild reproof
He’ll be up from your table and off with your roof…
In your sorrows you’ll only sink deeper and deeper
If you ever make friends with an elephant-keeper.
____________
When choosing a mount
For a race or a hunt,
Or to ride at the Front,
Remember fat cattle
Get blown in a battle;
But a lean stringy horse
Will stand up round a Course,
And will never give in –
Although he’s too thin
You can back him to win.
____________
The Bull to the Donkey one day said in jest:
‘Do you think that your ears or my horns are the best?’
The Ass to this sally replied: ‘Since a child
My friends have described me as humble and mild,
But if I had horns ’twould no longer be true –
And I shudder to think what would happen to you.’
____________
Gold can glitter strangely
When hewn in some deep mine;
Gold can buy you many things
Including warmth and wine;
But anyone amassing it
In honesty must own
There’s hardly any difference
’Twixt a nugget and a stone.
____________
Whose wife is tender, wise, and true
In fact, Beloved, just like you,
Although he merits no such thing
Will live, as I do, like a King.
____________
Aggrieved because I had no shoes
I shuffled down the street,
Till someone cried: ‘There stumping goes
A man who has no feet.’
Then was I instantly aware
That I from pain was free,
And thanked God, the Compassionate,
for all He’d given me.
____________
Although the sun shines bright,
Though nothing stirs in sight,
When traversing the desert
Do not forget your gun.
Although the plain stretched wide,
Good men before have died,
Who failed to see a leopard
Curled sleeping in the sun.
____________
Live always by your own unflinching toil;
Dig deep, and sow and seed; do all you can
To pay the debt you owe your country’s soil –
Then you need not depend on any man.
____________
A King who has no aptitude for war,
And finds the bred of idleness too sweet,
Is like a Pedagogue who hears afar
His pupils playing leapfrog in the street.
____________
When raindrops from the heavens fall,
Tenderly and slow,
They nourish garden lawns – and make
The desert thistles grow.
____________
The eyes o’erflow for what they most desire,
Whereas my heart is scorched by passion’s fire;
Both ways afflicted, whither can I turn?
In floods I perish, or in flames I burn.
____________
When pure souls from their earthly bondage fly
It matters not whereon their bodies lie,
On throne or floor;
For God is merciful – He ne’er forsakes
The true in heart; and to His Kingdom takes
The meek, the poor.
____________
Straightforwardness becomes a man
As snow becomes a mountain,
Or as becomes the hush at dawn
The music of a fountain.
No man has ever yet got lost
Who in his heart would say:
‘In God alone I put my trust –
He maketh straight the way’.
____________
O Nightingale, we bid you sing
Of Youth, and Hope, and Beauty,
As if to chant the praise of Spring
Were your appointed duty;
Too soon the Owl of Death will come
With sudden haunting cry,
Too soon we each must seek our home
In the cold earth to lie.
____________
Patience, the lover cried,
A faded mantle wears;
Patience, the exile sighed,
Is bitter as our tears;
Sour is its root
Sa‘di to them replied –
But lo! How sweet the fruit
At last it bears.
_______________
(Extracted from ‘Poems from the Persian’)