Part 8

VII.

Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring Your Winter garment of Repentance fling: The Bird of Time has but a little way To flutter--and the Bird is on the Wing.

VIII.

Whether at Naishapur or Babylon, Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run, The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop, The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.

IX.

Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say: Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday? And this first Summer month that brings the Rose Shall take Jamshyd and Kaikobad away.

Well, let it take them! What have we to do With Kaikobad the Great, or Kaikhosru? Let Zal and Rustum bluster as they will, Or Hatim call to Supper--heed not you.

XI.

With me along the strip of Herbage strown That just divides the desert from the sown, Where name of Slave and Sultan is forgot-- And Peace to Mahmud on his golden Throne!

XII.

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness-- Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

XIII.

Some for the Glories of This World; and some Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come; Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go, Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!

XIV.

Look to the blowing Rose about us--"Lo, Laughing," she says, "into the world I blow, At once the silken tassel of my Purse Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw."

XV.

And those who husbanded the Golden grain, And those who flung it to the winds like Rain, Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn'd As, buried once, Men want dug up again.

XVI.

The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon Turns Ashes--or it prospers; and anon, Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face, Lighting a little hour or two--is gone.

XVII.

Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai Whose Portals are alternate Night and Day, How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp Abode his destined Hour, and went his way.

XVIII.

They say the Lion and the Lizard keep The courts where Jamshyd gloried and drank deep: And Bahram, that great Hunter--the Wild Ass Stamps o'er his Head, but cannot break his Sleep.

XIX.

I sometimes think that never blows so red The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled; That every Hyacinth the Garden wears Dropt in her Lap from some once lovely Head.

XX.

And this reviving Herb whose tender Green Fledges the River-Lip on which we lean-- Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen!

XXI.