CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THIS BOOK IS ONE OF A COLLECTION MADE BY BENNO LOEWY 1854-1919 AND BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY Date Due | j i 4fi lfr495 e w igsTKn, -Mflfi^i 33S5 iMf y 3 1924 026 807 515 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92402680751 5 Young and enterprising is the West; Old and meditative is the Ha^t. Turn, Youth! with intellectual zest, Where the Sage invites thee to his feast. THE POETRY OP THE EAST. WILLIAM KOUNSEVILLE ALGEK. What precious things I fouuii in Oriental' lands, Ketuming home, I brought them in my votive hands. BOSTON: WHITTEMOKE, NILES, AND HALL. 1856. ? Entered axjcording to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by WILLIAM EOUNSEVILLE ALGEK, in the Clerk's OfBce of the District Court of the District of Mitssachusetts. C.^' .W^-*'f CAMBRIDGE; ELECTROTYPED AND FEINTED BY METCAI,r AND COMPANr. PREFACE. The whole field of Oriental literature, so far as accessible through English, Latin, and German trans- lations, has long been with me a favorite province for excursions in such leisure hours as I could coromand. And during that time I have been in the habit of versi- fying the brief passages which struck me most forcibly. From the enjoyment these pecuUar fragments of medi- tation and imagery gave me, from the conviction that others too would enjoy them, from the difficulty of finding them where they now lie, dispersed and bur- ied amidst repelling masses of dry detail, and frOm the expressed desire of several friends, arose the re- solve to venture the present publication. The larger proportion of the specimens given here are faithful representations of Hindu, Persian, and Arab thoughts, sentiments, and fancies, which I have met with in the voluminous records of the different Asiatic Societies, in prose versions of the Vedas and Purdnas, IV PREFACE. and in a thousand scattered sources. Of the rest, the originating hint and impulse alone, or merely the char- acter and style, are Oriental ; as, for example, the third piece on p. 95, the piece on p. 118, that on p. 149, and the one on p. 127. In some cases I have in- troduced, of my own composition, descriptions of Ori- ental scenes ; as, for instance, the piece entitled " The Call to Evening Prayer,'' on p. 137. In stUl other cases I have wrought into metrical shape fragments of Eastern mythology and tradition, as in the piece on p. 140, and that on p. 171. " The Pledge, and the Thing," p. 107, and the "Light-House of Immortality," p. 121, are derived from the Akhlak-I Jalaly, a Persian Pland-Book of Morals, translated by W. F. Thompson. " The Two Travel- lers," p. 106, is a versified translation from the prose of Saadi's Fifth Sermon, — a wonderful specimen of Mo- hammedan preaching and Sufl eloquence, to be found in the first volume of the Transactions of the Literary Society of Bombay. " The Beggar's Courage," p. 110, is from the Mesnavi of Mewlana Dschelaleddin Eumi, through Tholuck. With the foregoing acciden- tal exceptions, I have prefixed to each piece, which is strictly a translation, the name of the original au- thor, or source, whenever it was known to me. The numerous specimens derived through the German of Herder and of Eiickert I am compelled to leave PKBFACE. . V anonymous, as no clew is given to the authors from whom they were obtained. A list of these is here added. The following are from Herder: P. 147, 2d,. 3d, 4th; 148, 1st, 2d; 149, 1st; 161, 1st; 166, 2d; 172, 3d; 175, 1st, 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th; 177, 1st; 178, 1st, 3d; 179, 1st; 181, 3d; 182, 2d, 3d; 185, 3d; 223, 1st. The following are from Eiickert: P. 98, 1st; 102, 2d, 3d; 103, 2d; 134, 4th ; 138, 4th ; 145, 2d; 166; 169, 2d; 193, 1st; 194, 1st; 197, 1st, 2d; 198, 1st; 205, 1st; 207, 3d; 221, 1st; 222, 2d; 228, 3d; 230, 1st; 231, 2d; 235, 1st; 237, 1st; 247, 1st; 252, 2d, 3d; 253, 2d, 3d; 254, 1st; 267, 1st; 268, 1st; 270, 2d. "A Persian Eeverie," on p. .195, is from the Ger- man of Daumer, who composed it on the basis of a poem by Eiickert. I am also indebted to Daumer, Von Hammer, and Bodenstedt, for quite a number of miscellaneous specimens of Persian poetry. In most of these cases, however, I have been able to give the names of the original authors. AH the pieces remaining, in addition to those now designated, are to be ascribed, under the conditions before stated, to the present writer. With small pretensions, with fervid interest in the subject, this humble offering, brought from the altar of the Oriental Muses, and laid on the shrine of Ameri- PEEFACE. can Literature, is commended to the kind notice of all whose curiosity or sympathy responds to the strange fascination of Eastern gorgeousness, reverie, and pas- sion. Boston, September, 1856. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. Purposes of this Essay, 3 Desirableness of such a Work, 4 Range and. Variety of Eastern Poetry, .... 4 Alliterations ; Puns ; Ingenious Compositions in Geometrical Shapes, 5 Immense Amount of Eastern Poetry, .... 7 English Translations from the Eastern Tongues, . . 8-10 Southey and Moore, 11 German Translations from the Eastern Tongues, . 12, 13 Mirtsa Schaff^, a Living Persian Poet, .... 14 Goethe's WestOestUcher Divan, 15 Oriental Metrical Eorms, . . . ... . 16 Comparison of Eastern and Western Poetry, . . 17-21 Peculiarities of Eastern Literature, 22 Chinese Poetry, 23, 24 Hebrew Poetry, 25 Dr. Noyes's Translations, 26 The distinctive Hindu, Persian, Arab, and Sufi Muses, . 27 The Hindu Drama, 28 The RamSyana, Valmiki's Epic, 29 Episode of Ravana AND Sit A, 30-36 The MahabhSrata, Vydsa's Epic, 37 The Close op the mahabhaeata, . . .38-44 Arabian Poetry, . 45 Ereiligrath's Pic,tuee op the Desekt, . . . 46-49 Scenery and Life of Arabia, ...... 50 The Spirit-Caravak, 50-53 VIU CONTENTS. The Arabian Maiden, Horse, and Palm, .... 53 Persian Poetry, 54 The Shah Mmeh of Krdonsi, 55 !Firdousi's Ten-ible Satire on Mahmond, . . . .56 Bewildering Luxury of Persian Lyrics, .... 57, 58 Jemsciiid's Cup, Solomon's Ring, Iskander's Mirror, . . 59 The Three Pau-s of Persian Lovers, .... 60 Episode of Perh^d in Nisami's Khosru and Shii-een, . . 61 The Five Allegories of Hapless Love, .... 62 The Sect of Sufis, 63 Their Quietistic Enthusiasm, 64 The Successful Search, a Sufi Poem, . . . .64 The Three Stages of Piety, 66 Mewlaua Dschelaleddin Eumi, 66 Inwardness of Suiism, 67 The Religion of the Heart, 68 Sufistic Optimism, 69 Death the Enti-ance to Ecstasy, 70 Characteristics of Oriental Poetry. 1. Freedom of Imagination, 71 2. Copiousness of Comparison, 72 3. The Apologue, 73 The Caliph and Satan, . . . . 74-77 4. Paradoxical Figures, -78 5. Bacchic and Erotic Imagery, 79 6. Metaphysical and Imaginative Mysticism, . . .80 Distinction between SentimentaKst and Mystic, . 80 The Contents op Piety, , 81 7. Pantheism, 82 8. Profound Feeling of Worldly Evanescence, . 83-85 The Eastern Poet a Preacher, .... 86-88 The Festival, 89-91 Apologetic Justification of the Present "Work, ... 92 Metrical Specimens, 93 _ 270 Alphabetical Index to the Specimens, 271 AN INTRODUCTION ORIENTAL POETRY HISTORICAL DISSERTATION. The three aims of this essay are, to convey to the reader some conception of the vast contents of the im- perial treasure-house of Oriental poetry; to present a brief sketch of the labors of modern scholars towards bringing this unique literature to the acquaintance of the Occidental world ; and to give an illustrative analy- sis of the distinguishing characteristics of Arab, Hindu, Persian, and Siifi poems. I am aware that I shall ac- complish these objects imperfectly, because my knowl- edge of the original materials has been obtained through translations, and because the narrow limits within which the exposition must be cpnfined wiU not allow a full detail even of the facts and illustrations actually in my hands. Still I hope not to be charged with presumption, and ruled out of the literary court as an incompetent intruder, however incommensurate my performance may be with the theme ; and would suggest, in depre- cation of censure, that the present work, inadequate as it -is, will yet meet a real want, and perhaps lead to worthier productions. Those who feel curiosity on the subject will gladly own, that even the meagre outhne of 4 INTEODtrCTION TO the Eastern Muse given here is better than nothing. It comes into a vacant place where many are looking, and therefore may be welcomed, although it very in- completely fills that place. Thousands desire to know more than they can learn, from means at hand, of that wondrous harvest of Oriental thought, sentiment, and fancy, from which scattered blades, fragmentary grains, stray blossoms, are occasionally reaching them : and while the great scholars, the front reapers in this field, do not drive their loaded wains to our Western mart, the humble gleaner may not be stigmatized as immodest if he brings forward a small sheaf of speci- mens. Of course, at the best, it must be extremely inadequate ; for, as Dschelaleddin says, A flower-branch of the garden one brings to the town, "But brings not the whole garden of flowers to the town. Oriental poetry includes a much more varied range of subjects than Occidental. A large portion of the re- ligious, metaphysical, geographical, philological, histori- cal, and mathematical treatises of the East are written in measure and rhyme. " The ancient laws of the race were framed in verse, and sung into authority as the carmen necessarium of the state." The children's school- books, from Mecca to Borneo, from Bagdad to Pekin, are almost invariably composed in poetic form. A sort of catechism, said to be universally used in the Chinese seminaries of instruction, commences thus : — All men at birth are good alike at root, But afterwards they difier much in fi-uit. ' Wilford ascribes to Vikramaditya, the powerful mon- arch at whose court Kdliddsa flourished, a work on OKIENTAL POETRY. 5 Geography, which is still extant in manuscript, in twenty thousand slokas. There seems to be a power- ful propensity in the whole Eastern mind to a measured, musical utterance filled with recurring sounds. Apd, so, in one rhetorical form it sets forth the subject-matter of speculation and science, observation and fancy, alike, from the attenuated theses of Buddha's abysmal philos- ophy, to the Poor Richard maxims of the Confucian sages ; from the prayers to Agni, god of fire, in the oldest Indian "Veda, to the dry etymological disquisitions in the latest Arabic grammar. Even their prose, as is remarkably shown in the Koran, is thickly interspersed with rhymes, balanced clauses, and pairs of jingling names. Instead of Cain and Abel, the Arabs say Abel and Kabel. A noticeable feature in Eastern poetry is the quirks, conceits, puns, alliterations, with which much of it abounds. Many of these are wrought up in forms of such exceeding diflBculty, that their elaboration must have cost immense pains, as well as ingenuity. The construction and solution of riddles is a favorite exer- cise with them. These patient authors have composed acrostics, whose lines read the same forwards, back- wards, upwards and downwards, at each end, and through the centre. They have written poems in lines of dif- ferent lengths, and so arranged as to constitute the shapes of drums, crosses, circles, swords, trees. The Alexandrian rhetoricians afterwards amused themselves V in a similar manner, — writing cutting satires and pier- cing invectives in the form of an axe or a spear. The Christian monks of the Middle Age also did the same thing ; composing, for instance, hymns in the fonn INXRODTJCTION TO of the cross. I have seen an erotic triplet composed by a Hindu poet, the first line representing a bow, the second its string, the third an arrow aimed at the heart of the object of his passion. a ^ the fairest ,j^^ >^ V-i -° ? V Those charms to mn, with all my empire I would gladly part. o o Some account of these curiosities is furnished by Yates's paper, in the twentieth volume of the Asiatic Eesearches, on " Sanscrit Alliteration.'' If the compar- ative degree of our adjective " great " were spelt in the same way as the familiar instrument for rubbing nut- megs, the following lines would represent the equiva- lent of a satirical pun by an Indian bard : — Thy voice's melody than any man's is greater ; It tears my ear as would the scratching of a grater. OBIENTAL POETRY. 7 But perhaps the most remarkable example of literary \ ingenuity the world can afford is those Sanscrit poems wherein all the words have a double sense, — as our word " chum " may be read either as a noun or as a verb, ■ — so that two propositions are enounced, or two nar- ratives related, at once, in the same words. It would be hard to exemplify this with much success, or at much length, in English. But an approximate illustration may be obtained if we suppose all the corresponding words in the two following lines to be spelt alike while retaining their respective significations : — The even belle thus told when the day's red course was all so dun ; The even bell thus tolled when the Day's dread corse was also done. The former line would mean. The undisturbed beauty narrated some incident when the bright path of the sun had grown entirely brown in twilight ; the latter, The vesper-bell was pealing a funeral chime in a certain manner when the awe-inspiring form of the dead ruler of Algiers was likewise ready for burial ; — while, alike to ear and ey^, the words would be in both cases identi- cally the same. But aside from these rhymed text-books and techni- cal artifices, the literature of the Orient is astonishingly rich in poetry, properly so called. The names of poets renowned throughout those strange and crowded climes are to be reckoned hterally by the thousand. It is thought that Persia alone has produced more than twenty-five thousand. Poems of boundless diversity of subject and character, possessing peculiar merits of a superior order, fill volumes amounting to hundreds on 8 INTEODUCTION TO hundreds. This prodigious realm of reflection and imagination, of feeling and art, remained, untU within less than three quarters of a century, a terra incogr nita, a world shut up from us. Even now few persons know anything more of its extent and qualities than can be gathered from the little fragments occasionally found in the corners of magazines and newspapers. The present general ignorance is no longer a necessity. Materials enough have been imported into the modern tongues, by scholars who have come freighted back from voyaging over the sea of Eastern languages, to afford quite an extensive acquaintance with this whole prov- ince ; though those materials are dispersed in numerous channels, not popularly known and often not readily ac- cessible. A slight account, therefore, of what has been done in this direction, by the English and the Germans, may be of use. Sir William Jones was the Vasco de Gama who first piloted the thought of Europe to these Oriental shores. It was on one of his earliest expeditions into Sanscrit- land, that the divining-rod of his sensitive genius, flut- tering in response to an irresistible attraction towards the veiled and unimaginable mines of Indian poetry, fastened at last, by magnetic instinct, upon Sakuntala, the master-piece of Kd,hdd,sa, the happiest production of the Hindu drama, the " As You Like It " of the East- ern Shakespeare. The publication by him of this beau- tiful play, also of some miscellaneous Persian odes, and Brahminic hymns, and of his famous pioneer essay on the "Poetry of the Eastern Nations," attracted the attention, and stimulated the labors, of many scholars both in Great Britain and on the Continent, and led to OEIBNTAL PGBTEX. 9 extensive consequences. He was the first President of the Royal Asiatic Society, which, by its roots at home and its brandies abroad, has since done so much to fructify our Western literature with , Oriental sap and grafts. Scattered notices arid fragments in the numer- . ous volumes of the " Asiatic Researches," and of the " Asiatic Journal," furnish a great variety of translated specimens of the poetry of the East, and a valuable fiind of general information on the Vhole subject. Wilkins early published a prose version of the Bhtgvat Oita, a long metaphysical episode from the stupendous Indian epic ; of which also a new translation by Thomp- son has just issued from the press. Milman has given us, in most faithful and felicitous verse, another epispde from that vast and ancient poem, namely, the story of Nala and Damayanta, a tale of the rarest interest, sweetness, and simplicity. Professor H. H. Wilson, the distinguished President of the Royal Asiatic Society of England, whose profound lore and magnificent pub- lished achievements have long since won for him the admiring reverence of scholars throughout the world, gave the public, twenty years since, three volumes of Hindu Plays. He has also printed a few small poems from the Sanscrit, together with a happy metrical version of Kaliddsa's " Megha-Duta, or Cloud-Messen- ger." The title of the latter production partly indicates s ,, its subject, which is the story of a Yaksha, or mountain demigod, who loves and marries an Apsarasa, or heavenly nymph, and resides with her in the celestial regions. But having offended Indra, he is banished from her to the earth. Disconsolate and pining, he stands on a lofty peak, gazing towards his lost paradise.^ 10 INTRODUCTION TO A cloud floats over him in the direction of the home of the Apsarasas. He sends a message by it to his be- loved spouse : and so the plot proceeds to the desired sequel. There is, a volume of " Specimerfs of Old Indian Poetry " by Griffiths ; ke has also translated Kdlidasa's " Birth of the War-God." Eastwick has presented us with a beautiful prose version of the Prem Sagar, or " The Ocean of Love," a history of Krishna, recounting the adventures of Vishnu during his incarnation as a cow- herd-boy in the meadows of Gopala. A most curious allegorical drama, called " The Rising of tjie Moon of Intellect,!' likewise exists in an Enghsh dress by Dr. Taylor. The Gulistan or " Eose-Garden " of Saadi has appeared successively in the English versions of Glad- win, Dumoulin, Ross, and Eastwick. Gladwin trans- lated, in addition, Saadi's Pund-Nameh or " Compen- dium of Ethics " ; and a philological poemi entitled " Re- semblance Linear and Verbal." Firdousi's Shah-Nameh, the great Iranian epic, has been admirably brought into our tongue, in a form of mingled prose and verse, by Atkinson. Episodes from this famous *' Book of Heroes " had been previously rendered by Champion, Weston, and Robertson. Selections of the lyrics of Hafiz were pub- lished in English verse successively by Richardson, Nott, and Hindley. Professor Falconer has enriched our literature with a small volume of characteristic and ex- quisite odes and fragments from the Persian. "The Rose-Garden of Persia," a volume by Miss Costello, contains a large collection of interesting metrical pieces from different Persian bards. Milnes has embodied a few delightful specimens of Oriental thought in his book ORIENTAL POETET. 11 of " Palm Leaves." And in Trench's " Poeins from Eastern Sources" are many which possess remarkable beauty, truth, and power. Several pieces in Bayard Taylor's " Poems of the Orient" scarcely fall below any in our language as representative expressions of the real passion, imagery, and form of the Eastern Muse. There is a notice, in the fifty-fourth volume of the Westminster Review, of Preston's translation of an interesting Ara- bian poem, called Makamat. A hundred years 'ago Professoi- Chappelow published Tograi, or " The Trav- eller," an Arabic poem. There is, too, a volume by Professor Carlyle,- entitled " Specimens of Arabian Poetry, from the Earliest Time to the Extinction of the Khaliphat." Southey excited interest in the myths of India by "Thalaba" and "The Gurse of Eehama,"— justly among the most popiilar of his publications. Their my- thology and their descriptions of natural scenery are quite true to the Hindu belief and clime ; but as poetry they are utterly remote from all the native tones of the Sanscrit lyre. Moore's famous and favorite tale of Lalla Eookh is far more successful, every way, in reproducing the breath and raiment of Asiatic poesy. The Moslem and Gheber traditions and associations, the current im- agery, local form and color of the Orient, are here pre- served and wrought up by a fancy wholly Persian in its revelling profuseness and felicity. Not the very genius itself of Iran's own soil can outvie, in exhaustless wealth of splendors and sweets, the cloying witchery of beauty and melody that crowds the pages of the Irish bard's "Lalla Eookh," and of his "Loves of the Angels." The lines dissolve in voluptuous languor of music; 12 INTRODUCTION TO Oriental superstitions impregnate the thoughts ; and as we read, or listen, visions of snowy Peris, red wine- fountains in gushing spouts, porphyry palaces, golden domes, and birds of Paradise, float before us, and a breeze laden with perfumes from " the gardens of Gul in their bloom " is wafted to our nostrils. The Germans have transplanted much more exten- sively than the Enghsh from this wide and winsome field. More than a score of her heroic scholars, toiling devotedly in this long-neglected department, have en- riched the mother tongue of Germany with copious contributions of choice-culled flowers from the Eastern Muses, and made the names of Valmiki, Vyasa, and Kalidasa, Firdousi, Haflz, and Saadi, well-nigh as familiar on the banks of the tlhine and beneath the lindens of Vienna, as they are along the shores of the Ganges and amidst the kiosks of Shiraz. Large por- tions of the two great cycles of Indian epic poetry have been brought into their own vernacular by the Schle- gels, by Holtzmann, by Wilmans, and by Bopp. The elder Humboldt also published an important critical essay on this subject, which attracted much attention at the time. An entire version of Firdousi has appeared in Germany by Schack, besides various portions of his work rendered by different hands. Tholuck translated and edited a " Collection of Fragments from the Orien- tal Mysticism," comprising many gems of rare light and wonderful setting. Herder early became quite a profi- cient in this province of world-literature, and his works contain an extremely large number of short, select pieces of Hindu wit, wisdom, and imagination. Rosenzweig printed three volumes of important Persian poems by ORIENTAL POETRY. 13 different authors of eminence. Joseph von Hammer, known later as Hammer Purgstall, has given to the press — besides a Turkish romantic poem by Fasli, called " The Rose and the Nightingale," and a volume of precious " Fragments by an Unknown Persian Poet," and " The Divan of Baki," the greatest Turkish lyrist, and Schebisteri's " Eose-Field of Mystery," and the works of Motanebbi, the greatest Arabic poet^ — a gen- eral history of Arabic literature, filling six huge vol- umes and yet unfinished, a large foho history of Per- sian poetry, with extracts from two hundred celebrated poets, and a voluminous history of Turkish poetry, with extracts from twenty-two hundred poets. Hammer' Purgstall's contributions are unrivalled in quantity, and in quality their merits are very high, notwith- standing the somewhat damaging assaults upon his philological pretensions by Von Diez, Fleischer, and Weil. Riickert likewise has added greatly to the wealth of German literature by his innumerable trans- lations from various Oriental tongues, — translations which for literal and metrical closeness to their origi- nals, and for singular felicity and fire, hold supreme rank. His versions of small miscellaneous poems are too many to be recounted ; but among the chief of his works are his "Metamorphoses of Abu-Seid," his " Wisdom of a Brahmin," , his " Contemplation and Edi- fication from the East," and his " Brahminical Tales.'' There is .a fine rhymed version of the best lyrics of Hafiz by Daumer. A vast mass of valuable examples of Oriental poetry — reflection, fancy, feeling, meta- phor, and description — has been deposited in German speech by the hands of Hartmann, Kosegarten, Arnold, 14 INTRODUCTION TO Platen, Hoefer, Wolff, Graf, Bohlen, Peiper, Ewald, Miiller, and Heine. The titles of their works may be found under their names in the Oriental sections of the various German bibliographies. Two splendid volumes of Persian poems, " The Fruit-Garden of Saadi," and the Fragments of Ibn Jemin, translated by a learned Ger- man lady, Ottokar Maria, were published at "Vienna three years since. And a version, by Dursch, of a San- scrit poem, called "The Shattered Goblet," has just, appeared in thin quarto form. Bodenstedt not long ago published a charming little volume of the " Songs of Mirtsa Schaffy," a living ' poet, under whose instruction, the translator studied Persian literature, at Tiflis. In 1850 Bodenstedt issued an account of his travels in the East, of his studies with Mirtsa- Schaffy, and his obser- vations of Asiatic character and life. It is called " A . Thousand and One Days in the Orient," and is one of the most charming books of the kind ever written. Especially entertaining and peculiar are the details given in it of the mutual criticisms and • squibs which passed between Mirtsa Schaffy and Mirtsa Jussuf, who were rival teachers of Persian at Tiflis, and. both of whom were anxious to secure the patronage of. the young student from the West. Dr. Jolowicz also has recently issued a noticeable collection of well- chosen specimens of the best poetry of twenty East- ern nations, executed by a large number of distin- guished persons, and constituting a great quarto of six hundred and fifty pages, called'" Polyglot of Oriental Poetry." In this hasty survey the name of Goethe should not be omitted ; for he has done much to acquaint the Western OEIENTAL POETRY. 15 world with some peculiar traits of the poetry of the East. His " West-oestlicher Divan " is a series, not of transla- tions, but of original poems, written by him, in the spirit and method of the East, after he was past sixty years of age. Milnes, certainly a competent judge, says of this work : " Any one who has made it the companion of his Eastern tour will acknowledge the wonderful suc- cess of the experiment, and feel more strongly than ever the genius of that consummate artist, to whom all faiths and feelings, all times and events, seem to have minis- tered, as certain of being well understood and rightly used as if their master had been Nature itself. He wiU feel how truly Eiickert, in his ' Eastern Roses,' has sung : — ' Would you feast On purest East, You must ask it of the self-same man Who the best Has served the West With such vintage as none other can : Now, with Western rapture sated, Eastern draughts he quaffs elated, On his fresh luxurious ottoman. ' Evening splendor Loves to render Goethe homage as the Western star ; Lights of ijdorning Joy, adorning Him who triumphs in the Eastern car ; When they both combine their duty All the sky is flush with beauty. One Divan of crimson burning far ! 16 INTRODUCTION TO ' Could you know it, When the poet Barea his arm, that he has fought so long ? Age his lyre Steeps in fire, Tunes the strings, and renovates the song: In Iranian naphtha-waves, See, his veteran soul he laves. As in Italian suns the boy grew strong. ' In his veins Youth remains. Passion rages, and affection glows ; He is young. Heart and tongue, On his brow yet flourishes the rose J If he must not live for ever, From our love let nothing sever His long age until his last repose.' " The metrical literature of the Oriental languages admits far more freedom and variety of movement and measure than our own. The laws of versification es- tablished by the Indian bards include three distinct methods of measure ; that which is determined by time alone, that which reckons merely by syllables, that which is divided entirely by feet. And then all possi- ble combinations of the foregoing methods of rhythm are allowed, and the actual diversity of metre amounts literally to many thousands. This interesting point is elaborately explained by Colebrooke in a long paper on " Sanscrit and Pracrit Poetry," in the tenth volume of the Asiatic Eesearches. The oldest, simplest, most commonly adopted measure is the Sloha, ■ — a sixteen- OKIENTAL POETEY. 17 syllable line divided at the eighth, syllable. There is a class of poems, called Ghazels, comprising a large part of the lyrics of the East. Its law is that the first two lines rhyme, and for this rhyme a new one must be found in the second line of each succeeding couplet, the alternate line being free. These poems sometimes con- tain forty or fifty couplets. Here is a brief specimen of the Ghazel from Trench's Eastern poems. f THE WORLD'S UNAPPEECIATION. " What is the good man and the wise ? Ofltimes a pearl which none doth prize ; Or jewel rare, which men account A common pebble, and despise. Set forth upon the world's bazaar, It mildly gleams, but no one buys, TiU it in anger Heaven withdraws From the world's undiscerning eyes : And in its shell the pearl again. And in its mine the jewel, lies." But let us pass from form to life and substance. It is unfair and misleading to say, with indiscriminate univer- sality, that Oriental poetry is thus, Western poetry so ; because, among the immense treasures of Eastern litera- ture, gathered by its native bards during so many gen- erations, there is almost every conceivable variety of subject and treatment, marked by almost every possible- mode and degree of thought, imagery, and emotion. Eastern writing is not, as many seem to think, all com- pact of foolish hyperbole, petty conceit, and mystic jug- glery. It is not all,, as many of the specimens most 2 18 INTRODUCTION TO circulated might lead us to imagine, ia the strain of " He lifted his head from the collar of reflection, drew aside the veil of silence, and strewed the pearls of his speech to the bewildering dehght of his auditors." In its different departments, though it is indeed often characterized by this childish profusion of weak and huddled metaphors, it yet possesses narrators as graph- ic in precision and directness as Homer; elegiasts as touching in clean simplicity of conception and thought- ful pathos of phrase as Simonides ; epigrammatists not a whit inferior in brevity, point, and beauty to CaUinia- chus ; humorists whose sketches and colors are as ad- mirable as the most genial of Sterne's ; satirists whose lines are as sharp-edged as the most cutting of Swift's ; ethical and descriptive poets whose hortatory appeals, and pictures of nature and life, will not suffer by com- parison with similar productions by European authors of the most respectable rank at the present time ; thinkers as profound as Plato, as subtile as Fichte ; in whose speculations lie the germs, and many of the develop- ments, of every philosophical theory now known, from Spinoza's to Locke's, from Berkeley's to Hegel's. The truth of this general statement might easily be proved and illustrated by citation of authorities and examples, if that were needed or appropriate in this connection. The justice of it will be recognized at once by all who are acquainted with the translations of Von Hammer and Eiickert, and with the Sankhya and VedAnta sys- tems of Hindu metaphysics. This is sufficient to show the injustice of depicting two strongly contrasted faces, and, pointing out their unhke hneaments, exclaiming. Behold there the Oriental, here the Occidental Muse ! ORIENTAL POETRY. 19 The respective literary progeny of East and West often closely resemble each other in many particulars by mutual or alternate approximation, although com- monly, as we should naturally expect, there are certain family features, and an indefinable expression, distin- guishing them. As it is no rare thing for Asiatic au- thors to compose like European, so Europeans frequent- ly write in the fullest vein of the Asiatics. Shake- speare out-orients the Orient with his apostrophe to " eyes that do mislead the morn." What inspired child or frantic devotee of the Persian lyre ever transcended such figures as " flecked Darkness like a drunkard reels from the pathway of day as gray-eyed Morn advances " ; " I would tear the cave where Echo lies, and make her airy (tongue hoarse with repetition " ; " Heaven peeps through the blanket of the dark"; and ten thousand other images equally astonishing, born in our English speech ? Sir William Jones strikingly brings together a prose-translated ode of the Persian Bulbul, and a kin- dred ditty of the British Swan, to show that the poetic imaginations of the two countries are, after all, not so different as has been supposed. According to our poor versification, thus run the notes of the splendid By Ibul of Shiraz : — Sweet gale ! my love this fragrant scent has on thee cast, And thence it is that thou this pleasing odor hast. Beware ! Steal not ; what with her looks hast thou to do ? O rose ! what art thou when compared with that which blew In blush upon her cheek ? She 's fresh, thou 'rt rough with thorns. Narcissus ! to her languid eye, as blue as mom's, Thine eye is sick and faint. O pine ! in thy high place, What honor hast thou when compared with her shape's grace ? 20 INTKODtrCTION TO Sweet basil ! know'st thou not her lips are perfect musk, Whilst withered, lifeless, scentless, thou shalt lie at dusk ? O come, my love ! and charm poor Hafiz with thy stay. Even if thou linger'st with him but for one short day. And then thus in unison chimes the strain of the won- drous Swan of Avon : — " The forward violet thus did I chide : Sweet thief ! whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells, If not from my love's breath ? The purple pride. Which on thy soft cheek for complexion dwells. In my love's veins thou hast too grossly dyed. The lily I condemned for thy hand ; And buds of marjoraim had stolen thy hair ; The roses fearfully on thorns did stand. One blushing shame, another white despair ; A third, nor red nor white, had stolen of both, And to his robbery had annexed thy breath : But for his theft, in pride of all his growth, A vengeful canker eat him up to death. More flowers I noted, yet I none could see. But scent or color it had stolen from thee." The two antipodal realms of poetry often coalesce, and reflect each other in corresponding products, spring- ing from similar exercise of like faculties, and contem- plation of the same phenomena, and impulses of iden- tical experience. The human heart is like a harp borne through many lands, in every place, when- played on by the fingers of nature, time and fate, love, hope and grief, yielding the same tones, though variously colored by the different associations of scene and race amidst which they sound, and variously echoed by the different temperaments and objects upon which they strike. It is ORIENTAL POETKY. 21 also true, that, especially of late years, innumerable im- ages, fancies, modes of reflection, and tinges of senti- ment have found their way from the immemorial plains of Ilindostan, the vales of Cashmere, and the cities of Arabia, to our modem and far-away minds and books. " The seeds, there scattered first, flower in all later pages." Verily, as Milnes has happily rendered Goe- the's thought, " Many a light the Orient throws, O'er the midland waters brought ; , He alone who Hafiz knows Knows what Calderon has thought." Still we may say, in general, in regard to the distinc- tion between the light literature of Asia and that of Eu- rope, that they do, for the most part, greatly differ in the religions, philosophies, mythologies, traditions, customs, names, scenery, costumes, and ruling aims reflected in them respectively. And it must be owned by every one, that the East is, in a striking degree, more poetic — that is, more gorgeous, sensitive, passionate, subtUe, and mysterious — than the West. It is to us what wine is to water, the peacock to the hen, the palm to the pine, the orange to the apple. " Eastward roll the orbs of heaven, Westward tend the thoughts of men ; Let the poet, nature-driven, Wander eastward now and then " ; — for who would appreciate the poem must travel in the poet's land, and on every such excursion the lyric heart will find itself at home in that region, for it is native there. Humanity was cradled in the nest of dawn, and 22 INTKODUCTION TO a secret current in our souls still turns and flows to- wards mankind's natal star, standing above Eden, over the birth-spot of Adam. Whoso would plunge into the primal font of poesy, and bathe his soul in the very elixir of immortal freedom, must not turn his face after the sun in the circling course of industrial empire, — " But crowd the canvas on Ms bark, And sail to meet the morning." We think of the East as the home of magic and wonder, the misty birthplace of wisdom, the haunted shrine of an antique civilization, crowded with mazy im- mensities of human experience before the gates of Tad- mor were swung, or the crown of Palmyra had been so much as dreamed of. It rises in our thoughts with its dim-swarming peoples, now sunk fibreless in soft seas of sense, now frenetic with superhuman inspiration, as a kingdom whose hills are ribbed with silver shafts, its streams bedded with golden sand, its trenched ravines lined with pebbling diamonds, the edge of its strands covered with coral, the floor of its bays strewed with pearls, the breath of its meadows odorous with myrrh, its flowering trees of perennial green and bloom ever sagging with delicious fruit, cool fountains' spouting in every court, and entranced bulbuls warbling on every spray. Its geographical features and its intellectual conceptions, alike, are on a scale of prodigious grandeur whose vastitude crushes the power of sense, but pro- vokes Imagination to the fullest expansion of her cloudy wings. Its Ganges encounters the ocean with a shock that shakes the globe, and its Dhawalaghiri makes Olym- pus but little better than a wart ; its banyan over- ORIENTAL POETRY. 23 shadows armies and flourishes a thousand years ; its cos- mogonies dwarf the hugest dreams of Greece and Scan- dinavia ; in the background of its legends stalk deities , to whom Jupiter Tonans and Hammering Tho? are Lilliputian dandies ; and its annals enclose eons of epochs in which successive universes exist and perish like breaths in a frosty air. The poetry we should ex- pect, and have found, is as the clime, — vast in mystery, warm with passion, far-vistaed with reverie, rich in jewels, redolent with perfumes, briUiant in colors, inex- haustible in profusion. The metrical compositions of the Chinese are of three kinds in subject, scarcely ever varying from a certain ethical moderation of thought, or going beyond a prosaic level of emotion, though sometimes displaying wit of a quite excellent mirth. The first sort of Chinese poetry consists of simple moral tales with admonitory applications. The second consists of the aphoristic ex- pressions of a shrewd observation and a cunning judg- ment. Such as the striking couplet, " Who, in politeness, Lokman, was thy guide ? The unpolite ! the learned sage replied." Or such as this proverb, by one of their most renowned mandarins : ■ — Who sues a mite WUl catch a bite. The following is one of the sentences of Confucius himself: — Wisdom brings joy, clear as a crystal fountain : Virtue brings peace, firm as an iron mountain. The third is composed of feeling reflections on human 24 INTRODUCTION TO life, of which a fair example may be found in the fol- lowing fragment of an address to the people by an aged governor on leaving office : — When I look backward o'er the field of feme, Where I have travelled a long fifty years, The struggle for ambition, and the sweat For gain, seem altogether vanity. The Shi-King, one of the five sacred books which stand at the head of the Chinese literature, is a collec- tion of lyrical poems, three hundred and eleven in num- ber, selected by Confucius from a much larger number existing in his time, as most worthy of preservation. They belong mainly to the epoch 1122-650 B. C. ; a few, however, claim, and doubtless with justice, to date from 1766- 1123 B. C, and are accordingly among the very earliest poetical productions of the human race still preserved. They are in part of popular origin, ballad- like; partly satires, or panegyrics upon persons high in station ; partly hymns recited at the offerings to the dead. Their poetic value is very unequal, but they far exceed, upon the whole, most of the lyric productions of later ages, containing not infrequently noble, unartificial feelings expressed in a style of simple majesty and inim- itable energy. The next poetical work in the Chinese literature is the Ts'u-Tsse', ascribed to the fourth century before Christ, and to a single author, but probably the work of dif- ferent authors at different times. It contains moral declamations in poetic language, but no proper poetical compositions. Nothing farther appears until the period A. D. 618 - 906, when a much more artificial construe- ORIENTAL POETET. 25 tion of verse was introduced, and when an astonishing number of lyric poets appeared. A single, great col- lection, pubhshed by imperial command in 1707, con- tains the poems of more than a thousand poets and po- etasters of this period, giving, the biography also of each one, and a critical examination of his works. The productions of this period are regarded as models for all subsequent times.* Palestinian poetry needs no illustration here by ex- amples, because it is already universally accessible ahd familiar. The grand national characteristic of the Hebrew Muse is fervent rational piety, based on the bounded intellectual conception of a personal God, whose favor towards his children depends on the two conditions of his own disinterested love, and their moral qualities. The spirit and sum of Hebrew poetry are certainly the loftiest, purest, richest, the whole ancient world affords. Arabic literature, including its boasted Koran, is challenged to exhibit a production which can rival the story of the Idumaaan patriarch in beautiful argument, imaginative sublimity, and descriptive elo- quence. In all the Persian tongue's erotic wealth no Anacreontic idyl can at all approach the Song of Songs, which is Solomon's. No Hindu sage has wrought such a peerless mine of apothegmatic wisdom as the man- ual of proverbs by the young Judsean king, at whose feet the far-come queen of Sheba fell, crying, " The half * I am indebted for the latter part of the foregoing sketch to the kindness of Professor "W. D. Whitney, whose labors, in con- nection with Dr. Eoth, in editing the Atharva Veda, are an honor to American soholarsMp. 26 INTEODUCTION TO was not told me.'' No Greek or Roman moralist has ever sung the experience and enforced the lesson of a sensualist's life in such solemn lines and freighted peri- ods, with such melancholy refrain, and such divine con- clusion, as the author of Ecclesiastes. And beyond all emulation stand the religious hymns sung in Zion to the harp of David as the monarch-minstrel swept its chords. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard, and their words have gone out to the end of the world. Their echoes have floated, and will float, amidst the heart-strings of uncounted generations of exulting, sorrowing, confessing, worshipping humanity. And what is there in the most thrilling strains of the whole earth besides, to equal the martial ardor, the terrible pomp, the all-marshalling imagination, in the warlike bursts and inspired improvisations that drop burning from the lightning lyres of Isaiah and Habakkuk, amidst visions of meteor standards, staggering armies with garments rolled in blood, melting hills, falling stars, and a darkened imiverse ! To those who would' really appreciate Hebrew poetry, Dr. Noyes's transla- tions deserve to be emphatically commended for the faithful purity with which they render the original into Saxon speech of crystal clearness. His translation is far more literal, concise, properly divided, and intelligi- ble than the common version, and his notes are admira- bly judicious in rendering all needed helps. It is the purpose of the present work to illustrate the poetry of the three great families occupying South- ern and "Western Asia, stretching, on the upper ex- tremity, from the Black Sea to Samareand; on the lower, from Sumatra to the Straits of Babelmandel. OBIENTAL POETRY. 27 These families are the Hindus, the Arabs, and the Persians, including under the last head the Turks, as possessing the same imaginative type and hterary traits. The subjects common to all their metrical au- thors, and upon which the poetic lore of each of the countries has an enormous quantity of productions, are philosophical meditations, moral parables, fanciful tales, old traditions, feats and adventures of heroes and trav- ellers, pure creations of imagination, love-odes, theo- sophic musings, religious hymns, descriptions and moral- izings of natural phenomena, and such like. But while the three peoples have certain themes and styles of treatment in common, each also has some subjects and a prevailing spirit peculiar to itself. The doctrine of the metempsychosis, which saturates so much of the literature of the East with it9 manifold influences, — its ascetic aims and painful penances re- ducing all life to a ritual system, — properly belongs to the Indian race. That luxuriousness and indolence and Epicurean proclivity which we so often associate with the Orient, are Persian. But martial movement, bound- ing arteries, indefatigable activity, love of perilous enter- prise, thirsting rage, are Arab. The first may be rep^ resented by the Elephant, the second by the Gazelle, the third by the Lion. The Hindu Muse is pre-eminently characterized hj pensiveness, love of meditation. Her children see everything reflected in reverie. The world is suspended in Maya, or illusion, and they mildly think upon it. The Arab Muse is pre-eminently characterized by an ardent objectivity, active passion, freedom from morbid introspectiveness. Her children love outward things, deeds, descriptions. Their stories are of the 28 INTRODUCTION TO headlong race across Sahara, encounters with the lion, or smiting a foe. The sap in their trees seems blood, and the blood in their veins flre. The Persian Muse is pre-eminently characterized by de]ica.cj of sensation. A vital fancy, now finical in its conceits, now world-grasp- ing ia its illumined dilation, is over and through all her works. Victor Hugo, in his "Les Orientales," says " the Persians are the Italians of Asia." There is a fourth Muse in these countries, differing essentially from the foregoing ; not confined to either clime, but having the freedom of each, and reckoning as her servants a large class of the most gifted poets in them all. I refer to Siifism, whose pre-eminent characteristic is an intense subjectivity. Her adherents turn all faculties inwards in concentred abstraction, and heighten their conscious- ness tin it is lost in boundless identification. Thought and sensation, transfused and molten, flow through form- less moulds into ecstasy. The Hindus possess a distinguishing treasure in their drama. The most charming specimen of this known to us as yet is Sakuntala, — an episode drawn from the Mahabharata, and constructed by K^liddsa, of which a fresh translation by Professor Williams has but now been published, in a volume of profuse beauty and cost- liness. Goethe paid this play the following magnificent compliment : — Wouldst thou the blossoms of the spring, the autumn's fruits, Wouldst thou what charms and thrills, wouldst thou what sates and feeds, Wouldst thou the heaven, the earth, in one sole word com- press ? I name Sakvlntala, and so have said it all. ORIENTAL POETBY. 29 There are two cycles of Hindu traditions and myths, wrought up, unknown ages ago, into two tremendous epics ; the elder, the Eamayana, attributed to Vahniki, the other, the Mahabharata, ascribed to Vydsa. The Eamtlyana is a history of the avatdr or incarnation of Vishnu in human shape, to deliver the world from a gigantic demon, Eavana, who was tyrannizing over mankind, and had extended his power into the lower heavens. By terrible penances he had wrought from Brahma the promise that no mortal being should de- stroy him. Upon this he began openly to oppress all the good in his dominions, and to promote the impious. The curtain rises, and the action begins with a solemn conclave of the gods on the summit of Mount Meru. The senate of the Indian Olympus is fiUed with dismay at , the invincible power bestowed on the tyrant by Brahma's promise. At last Vishnu advances, and offers to be born as a man, to vanquish the common enemy. The next scene is on earth, at the court of Ayodhya, where King Dasaratha finds himself in old age without a son to succeed him. A saint advises him to perform the celebrated sacrifice of a horse, the Aswamedha. He does so, and his three wives bear him four sons, the eldest, Eama, being Vishnu himself. Eama has a great many adventures whUe his youth is passing, but at last is about to inherit the throne, when he is supplanted and banished for fourteen years. His wife, Sitd, and his brother Lakshmana accompany him. A long account follows of the scenes and occurrences of their wanderings. Finally they settle in a deep forest, Eama and Lakshmana spending their time in hunting beasts and chasing the demons. In Eama's absence' 30 INTEODUCTION TO Ravana discovers the cottage, and carries Sita away to his own abode. The disconsolate husband searches the peninsula in vain ; but meeting a tribe of apes, whose king, Sugriva, had been deprived of his crown,, Rama restored it to him, and the grateful monkey-monarch sent a multitude of his people to find Sitd. After much useless wandering, one of Sugriva's messengers discov- ered Sitd imprisoned in Ravana's palace, and brought the tidings to Rama, who immediately set out with an army of apes for the southernmost point of India, off whose coast the island-home of the tyrant lay. The apes threw Titanic rocks into the sea, until they made a bridge to the island. Then Rama passed over with his forces, and, after a dreadful battle, killed the demon, scattered his subject fiends, and rescued his beloved spouse. Returning to Ayodhya with his wife and his faithful brother, his lawful kingdom is given to him, and the work ends. Within this vague outline innu- merable branching episodes and details are included, which give the poem a most varied charm and value. I will now give an epitome, from a very valuable article on " Indian Epic Poetry," in the October number of the Westminster Review for 1848, of HAVANA'S CAPTURE OF SIT A. I. " Lakshmana, grieved at Site's words, no longer undecided stood, Biit hied him forth in Rama's search, and left her in the lonely wood. With many a dark presentiment fast gathering round, and unknown fear, ORIENTAL POETET. 31 In the deep forest-paths he roved, like one who roves he wists not where. And now that thus the golden deer had lured the brothers both away, Havana deemed within himself the hour was come to seize his prey. There he beheld the dame forlorn, left in that cottage all alone, As upon earth is left a gloom, when meet eclipsed the sun and moon : And while upon her form he gazed, so fair in such a dreary spot, Thus to himself the tyrant spoke, as he surveyed the lonely cot: ' While she is left with husband none, with brother none, to hear her cries. Why longer stay ? the time is come to claim and seize my rightful prize.' Thus having pondered in his heart, Ravana left his hiding- place. And walked where Sit^ sorrowing sat, clothed in a wander- ing beggar's dress. Threadbare and red his garment was, th' ascetic's tuft of hair he wore, And the three sticks and water-pot in his accursed hand he bore. As he drew near, the lofty trees, that over Janasthana grow. And every twining creeper-plant which hangs and climbs . from bough to bough. And every bird and every beast, stood motionless with silent dread, Nor dared the summer wind to breathe, nor shake a leaflet overhead. Over Godavery's bright wave a shiver darkened as he 32 DfTEODUCTION TO And bird and beast in terror fled, as on he came in evil haste, With his black heart and beggar's garb, disguised and hidden as he was, Like a dark well, whose unseen brink is oyergrown with waving grass. Hard by the cottage-door he stood, and gazed upon his vic- tim fair. As there she sat in woful plight, lost in a maze of grief and fear. Reft of her husband, and with gloom o'ershadowed like a moonless sky. Weeping alone in silent woe, and musing o'er that unknown cry. On her he gazed, and that fair face seemed ever fairer and more bright ; And his stern eye, awhile absorbed, lingered as loath to lose the sight. Fierce passion woke within his heart, until at length, with softened air, He thus addressed her as she sat, shining, a golden statue there : ' O thou, that shinest like a tree with summer blossoms over- spread, Wearing that woven kusa robe, and lotus garland on thy head. Why art thou dwelling here alone, here in this dreary for- est's shade. Where range at will all beasts of prey, and demons prowl in every glade ? WUt thou not leave thy cottage home, and roam the world, which stretches wide, — See the fair cities which men build, and all their gardens, and their pride ? Why longer, fair one, dwell'st thou here, feeding on roots and sylvan fare, ORIENTAL POETBY. 33 When thou might'st dwell in palaces, and earth's most costly jewels wear ? Fearest thou not the forest gloom, which darkens round on every side ? Who art thou, say, and whose, and whence, and wherefore dost thou here abide ? ' When first these words of Eavana broke upon sorrowing Sit4's ear, She started up, and lost herself in wonderment and doubt and fear ; But soon her gentle, loving heart threw off suspicion and sur- mise, And slept again in confidence, lulled by the mendicant's dis- guise. ' Hail, holy Brahmin 1 ' she exclaimed ; and, in her guileless purity, She gave a welcome to her guest with courteous hospitality. Water she brought to wash his feet, and food to satisfy his need, Full little dreaming in her heart what fearful guest she had received. II. " Then having pondered on his words, after a pause she made reply. And, in her guileless confidence, unbosomed all her history : How Kama won her for his bride, and brought her to his father's home. And how another's jealousy had cast them forth, the woods to roam ; All her full heart she opened then, and all her husband's praise she spoke. And long she lingered o' er the tale, and all the memories which it woke. ' And thou too. Brahmin,' she exclaimed, ' thy name and lineage wilt thou say ? 3 34 INTKODUCTION TO And wherefore thou hast left thy land, in pathless Dandaka to stray ? Erelong my husband will return ; to him are holy wander- ers dear, And fair the welcome which he gives, whene 'er their path- way leads them here.' Then answered her the demon-king, ' My name and lineage thou shalt hear, And wherefore in this guise I come, and wander ia this forest drear. Thee, Siti, am I come to see, — I, at whose name heaven's armies flee. The demon-monarch of the earth, I, Havana, am come to thee ! I come to woo thee for my queen; in Lanka stands my palace home. High on a mountain's forehead built, while round it breaks the ocean's foam. There like dark clouds my demons stand, my mandates through the earth to bear ; There shalt thou worshipped be like me, and all my world- dominion share.' In sudden wrath outburst she then, the wife of Raghu's princely son. And gushed indignant from her lips the answer to that evil one : ' Me wouldst thou woo to be thy queen, or dazzle with thine empire's shine ? And didst thou dream that Eama's wife could stoop to such a prayer as thine ? ' /, who can look on Eama's face, and know that there my husband stands, My Kama, whose high chivalry is blazoned through a hun- dred lands ! What ! shall the jackal think to tempt the lioness to mate with him ? ORIENTAL POETRY. . 35 Or did the king of Lanka's isle build upon such an idle dream ? He who would enter Eama's home, and think to tear his wife away, Might beard the lion in its den, and rob its hunger of its prey; Or safer far her new-born cubs from the fierce tigress might he wrest, Or in his garment wrap the flame, and fold and nurse it to his breast ! ' Stung to the heai^ by Site's words, the foe in silence folds his hands. And at that lonely cottage door a mendicant no longer stands : 'T is but a moment, and behold ! bursting from out th' as- sumed disguise. Before her towers the demon-"king, with his black brow and glaring eyes, In his dark crimson garment wrapt, and his black frown of passion wearing. While she, the helpless, stood beneath, with her fair face and gentle bearing. ' Sita, wilt thou reject me now ? In mine own shape I speak to thee. Behold thine utter helplessness, and dream not to escape from me. Nor dream to call thine husband's aid, nor measure his poor strength with mine, — Mine, that has conquered land and sea, and could forbid the sun to shine ! Afar to my own stately realm, behold ! I bear thee hence away. There to forget the banished man, the husband of a former day!' He spoke, and lowered his darkening brows, as lowers the storm-cloud in the sky, . * 36 • INTEODUCTION TO While from beneath came flashing forth the lightnings of his awful eye ; On her they fell, and seemed to scorch her gentle features ■with their glare. As high aloft he bore her up, — one hand amid her long fair hair. The other underneath her lay, — loudly she shrieked in utter woe, ' My husband, husband, sav'st thou not ? and Lakshmana, O where art thou ? ' As they beheld his awful form come striding through the sunny glades, The forest's deities, alarmed, fled to its deepest, darkest shades. On, ever on, he bore his prize, until at length he soared on high. And, as an eagle bears a snake, flew with his burden through the sky. 'O Rama ! Kama ! ' loud she cries, ' where wanderest thou in Dandaka ? And seest thou not the demon arm, which bears thy Sita far away ? Well may the jealous foe rejoice, who robbed thee of thy father's throne, And sent us from thy fether's court to roam these weary woods alone ! O Janasthana's flowering bowers, whilom my happy haunts, farewell ! When Rama to his cot returns, his sorrowing Sita's story teU! And you, ye trees, that blossom there, and gladden the dark forest gloom, O tell him, tell him Ravana hath stolen his Sita from his home ! And thou, my loved Godavery, where I whilom so oft have strayed. ORIENTAL POETKT. 37 And -watehed thy flocks of water-fowl, and heard their wild songs as they played ; Let thy sad waters murmur it, as home he wanders by thy shore, And tell him with their mournful plash that Sit& meets his steps no more ! And you too, upon you I call, ye blissful guardians of the woods, Ye happy sylvan deities, who roam amidst their solitudes ! O give him tidings of my fate, and tell him, as he roams for- lorn. The fell swoop of the demon-king hath Sita from his dwell- ing torn ! Well knows my heart, with instincts true, he will pursue his lost one's track, Though to the kingdoms of the dead he must descend to bring her back.' " The Mahabharata contains two hundred thousand six- teen-syllable lines, and jSlls four thick quarto volumes. Its proper subject, which is a war waged for the throne of India, between the sons of two brothers, Pandu and Dhritarashtra, is buried under an enormous accumula- tion of legends and heterogeneous lore. The work is therefore an inexhaustible repository of the mythical materials, the philosophy and the fiction of India. The clew — which so often seems to be lost in these interpo- lations, ranging from Krishna's metaphysics to Arjuna in the Bhagvat Gita, to the transparent simplicity of beauty in the matchless tale of Nala — is always skil- fully resumed, and the whole plot is evolved to the reader's entire satisfaction at last. Indeed, to my mind, the closing passage of the Mahabharata, take it for all in all, is the culminating point of the poetic literature of 38 INTEODUCTION TO the world. The followuig abstract of it is from the writer in the Westminster Eeview already referred to. "We know of no episode, even in the Homeric poems, which can surpass its mournful grandeur, or raise a more solemn dirge over the desolation of the fallen heart of man. Yudishthira has won the throne, and his enemies are all fallen ; and an inferior poet would have concluded the story with a psean upon his happiness. " Yudishthira learns, after his victory, that the throne for which he has suffered so much leaves him as unsat- isfied and hungry as before. The friends of his youth are fallen, and the excitement of contest is over. In gloomy disappointment, he resigns his crown, and, with his brothers and Draupadi, sets out on a forlorn journey to Mount Meru, where Indra's heaven lies, amongst the wilds of the Himalayas, there to find that rest which seems denied to their search upon earth. I. " Having heard Yudishthira's resolve, and seen the destruc- tion of Krishna, The five brothers set forth, and Draupadi, and the seventh' was a dog that followed them. Yudishthira himself was the last that quitted Hastinapura ; And all the citizens and the court followed them on their way, But none felt able to say unto him, ' Return ' ; And at length they all went back unto the city. Then the high-souled sons of Pandu and far-famed Drau- padi Pursued their way, fasting and with their faces turned to- wards the east, ORIENTAL POETRY. 39 Resolved upon separation from earth, and longing for release from its laws ; They roamed onward over many regions, and to many a river and sea. Yudishthira went before, and Bhima followed next behind him, And Arjuna came after him, and then the twin sons of Madri, And sixth, after them, came Draupadi, with her fair face and lotus eyes, And last of all followed the dog, as they wandered on till they came to the ocean. But Arjuna left not hold of his heavenly bow, Lured by the splendor of its gems, nor of those two heavenly arrows : And suddenly they saw Agni standing like a mountain before them, — Standing in gigantic form, and stopping up their path ; And thus to them spoke the god : ' O sons of Pandu, do you know me not ? Yudishthira, mighty hero, knowest thou not my voice ? 1 am Agni, who gave that bow unto Arjuna ; Let him leave it here and go, for none other is worthy to bear it. For Arjuna's sake I stole that bow from Varuna, the ocean- god; Let Gandhiva-,^that best of bows, be given back to ocean again ! ' Then the brothers all besought Arjuna to obey ; And he flung the bow into the sea, and he flung those im- mortal arrows; And lo ! as they fell into the sea, Agni vanished before them. And once more the sons of Pandu set forth, with their faces turned to the south. And then by the upper shore of the briny sea 40 INTRODUCTION TO They turned toward the southwest, and went on in their way. And as they journeyed onwards, and came unto the west, There they beheld the old city of Krishna, now washed over by the ocean tide. Again they turned to the north, and still they went on in their way, Circumambulating round the continent, to find separation from earth. II. " Then, with their senses subdued, the heroes, having reached the north, , Beheld, with their heaven-desiring eyes, the lofty mountain Himavat, And having crossed its height, they beheld the sea of sand. And next they saw rocky Meru, the king of mountains. But while they were thus faring onwards, in eager search for separation, Draupadi lost hold of her hope, and fell on the face of the earth; And Bhima the mighty, having beheld her fall. Spoke to the king of justice, looking back to her, as there she lay : ' No act of evil hath she done, that faultless daughter of a king; Wherefore, then, O conqueror ! hath she fallen thus low on the ground ? ' And thus to him answered Yudishthrra : ' Too great was her love for Arjuna, And the fruit thereof, O Bhima ! hath she here gathered this day.' Thus speaking, Bharata's glorious descendant went onwards, not looking back, Gathering up his soul in himself in his unstooping wisdom , and justice. ORIENTAL POETBT. 41 Next the fair Sahadeva fell upon the face of the earth, And Bhima, beholding him fall, thus spake to the king : ' O Yudishthira, he, the greatest, the least froward and wil- ful of us all. He, the son of fair Madri, — ■wherefore hath he fallen on the ground ? ' And him thus answered Yudishthira : ' He esteemed none equal to himself; This was his fault, and therefore hath the prince fallen this day.' Thus speaking, he left Sahadeva, and went on, Yudishthira, king of justice, with his brothers and the dog. But when Nakula saw the fall of Draupadi and his brother. The hero, full of love for his kindred, in his grief fell down like them to the earth. And when Nakula, the fair-faced, had thus fallen like the others, Once more, in his wonder, spoke Bhima unto' the king: ' What ! he, the undeviating in virtue, ever true to his honor and faith. Unequalled for beauty in the world, • — hath he too fallen on the ground ? ' And him thus answered Yudishthira: ' Ever was the thought in his heart, There is none equal in beauty to me, and I am superior unto aU! Therefore hath Nakula fallen. Come, Bhima, and foUow my Whatsoever each hath done, assuredly he eateth thereof.' And when Arjuna beheld them thus fallen behind him, He too, the great conqueror, fell, with his soul pierced through with sorrow ; And when he, the lion-heart, was fallen, like Indra himself in majesty, — When he, the invincible, was dead, once more Bhima spoke unto the king : 42 INTRODUCTION TO 'No act of evil do I remember in all that Aijuna hath done; Wherefore then is this change, and why hath he too fallen on the ground ? ' And him thus answered Yudishthira : '"In one day I could destroy all my enemies," — Such was Arjuna's boast, and he falls, for he fulfilled it not ! And he ever despised all warriors beside himself: This he ought not to have done, and therefore hath he fallen to-day.' Thus speaking, the king went on, and then Bhima himself next fell to the earth ; And as he fell, he cried with a loud voice unto Yudishthira : ' O king of justice, look back ! I — I, thy dear brother, am fallen ; What is the cause of my fall ? O tell it to me if thou know- est!' Once more him answered Yudishthira : ' When thou gazedst on thy foe. Thou hast cursed him with thy breath ; therefore thou too fallest to-day.' Thus having spoken, the mighty king, not lopking back, went on. And still, as ever, behind him went following his dog alone! m. " Lo ! suddenly, with a sound which rang through heaven and earth, « Indra came riding on his chariot, and he cried to the king, ' Ascend ! ' Then, mdeed, did the lord of justice look back to his fallen brothers. And thus unto Indra he spoke, with a sorrowful heart : ' Let my brothers, who yonder lie fallen, go with me ; Not even unto thy heaven would I enter, if they were not there. ORIENTAL POBTET. 43 And yon fair-faced daughter of a king, Draupadi the all- deserving, Let her too enter with us ! O Indra, approve my prayer ! ' INDKA. ' In heaven thou shalt find thy brothers, — they are already there before thee ; There are they all, with Draupadi ; weep not, then, O son of Bharata ! Thither are they entered, prince, having thrown away their mortal weeds ; But thou alone shalt enter still wearing thy body of flesh.' TUMSHTHIRA. ' O Indra, and what of this dog ? It hath faithfully followed me through ; Let it go with me into heaven, for my soul is full of compas- sion.' nSTDKA. 'Immortality and fellowship with me, and the height of joy and felicity, AU these hast thou reached to-day : leave, then, the dog be- hind thee.' YUDISHTHIEA. ' The good may oft act an evil part, but never a part like this; Away, then, with that felicity whose price is to abandon the -, faithful!' INDRA. ' My heaven hath no place for dogs ; they steal away our of- ferings on earth : Leave, then, thy dog behind thee, nor think in thy heart that it is cruel.' TUDISHTHIEA. ' To abandon the faithful and devoted is an endless crime, like the murder of a Brahmin ; 44: INTRODUCTION TO Never, therefore, come weal or 'woe, mil I abandon yon faithful dog. Yon poor creature, in fear and distress, hath trusted in my power to save it : Not, therefore, for e'en life itself will I breai my plighted word.' INDRA. ' If a dog but beholds a sacrifice, men esteem it unholy and void ; Forsake, then, the dog, O hero, and heaven is thine own as a reward. Already thou hast borne to forsake thy fondly loved broth- ers, and Draupadi ; Why, then, forsakest thou not the dog ? Wherefore now fails thy heart ? ' TUDISHTHIRA. ' Mortals, when they are dead, are dead to love or hate, — so runs the world's belief; I could not bring them back to hfe, but while they lived I never left them. To oppress the suppUant, to kill a wife, to rob a Brahmin, and to betray one's friend. These are the four great crimes ; and to forsake a dependant I count equal to them.' " Yudishthira then enters heaven ; but one more trial awaits him. He finds there Duryodhana and the other sons of Dhritarashtra, but he looks in vain for his own brothers. He refuses to stay in the Swerga without them, and a messenger is sent to bring him where they are. He descends to the Indian hell, and finds them there ; and he proudly resolves to stay with them and share their sorrows, rather than dwell in heaven without them. But the whole scene was only a maya, or illusion, to prove his virtue ; — the sorrows suddenly vanish, -^ ORIENTAL POETBT. 45 the surrounding hell changes into heaven, where Yu- dishthira and his brothers dwell with Indra, in full con- tent of heart, for ever." To the impressed imaginations and touched hearts of those who have read this wonderful poem, Hastinapura is a grander name than Troy, and Dhritarashtra, Pan- du, Yudishthira, Arjuna, Bhima, Kama, Damayanta, Draupadi, and Savitri are clothed with a subUme fas- cination of interest far transcending that which invests the highest personages of Grecian epic and tragedy. I will cite but one brief fragment more, a picture which like a quick, broad flash lights up to our ignorance the dark stage and canvas of the Hindu fancy. A Brah- min suddenly enters the arena, amidst the clang and confusion of a tournament : notice what an instant " hush follows, both m the din of the crowd and in the mind of the reader." " With the noise of the musical instruments, and the eager noise of the spectators, The din of the assembly rose up like the roaring of the sea, When, lo ! wearing his white raiment, and the white sacrifi- cial cord. With his snow-white hair and his silvery beard, and the white garland round his head, Into the midst of the arena slowly walked the Brahmin with his son, Like the sun with the planet Mars in a cloudless sky." The Arabians have a unique kind of poems called MoaUaca. It receives its name from the seven prize poems written in gold and " suspended " in the temple of Mecca, — the Pleiades in the heaven of Arabic poetry. This poem must commence with describing in mournful 46 INTEODUCTION TO Strain the ruins of a house or the deserted site of a tent, where, in an earlier, happier time, the poet was blessed with the presence of his beloved. Next the poet pro- ceeds to paint in glowing imagery the beauty and the merits of his courser or his camel. And the composi- tion closes with a description of some scene in nature, a shower, a moon-rise, or a landscape. These three par- ticulars being introduced in their proper order, the author is free to weave in with them any story, reflec- tions, or moral he pleases. It is very singular that these conditions of the Moallaca are all, in a manner, fulfilled in the book of Job, — the ruin of his eldest son's house with the destruction of his family, the famous panegyric of the horse, the description of constellations, thunder, and a whirlwind. A fine example of Arab scenery and life is given in the following poem by Freiligrath. The translation is by a writer in the Pros- pective Review. THE PICTURE OF THE DESEET. " A picture, good ! my brow I shade within the hollow of my hand; The curtains of mine eyes I close ! — Lo, there the desert's burning sand, The camping-places of my tribe, appear ; arrayed in lurid light, Kobed in her burning widow-weeds, Sahara bursts upon my sight. " Who travelled through the lion-land ? Of claws and hoofs the prints appear ; Timbuctoo's caravan ! Behold, far in the distance gleams the spear ; OBIENTAL POETEY. 47 There banners wave, while through the dust the Emir's purple floats along, And with a sober statelines3 the camel's head o'erpeers the throng. " Where sand and sky together blend, onward in close array they sweep ; Now the horizon's sulphurous mist ingulfs them in its lurid deep ; The vestige broad thou still canst trace distinctly of the flying train, As gleam, at intervals, dispersed, their relics o'er the sandy plain. " Look yonder ! like a milestone grim, a dromedary dead lies ' there; Upon the prostrate bulk are perched, with naked throats, a vulture pair ; Intent upon their ghastly meal, for you rich turban what care they. By some young Arab left behind in that wild journey's desperate way ? " Fragments of costly housings float the tamarisk's thorny bushes round ; And near, an empty water-skin lies foul and gaping on the ground ; Who 's he who treads it 'neath his feet ? The Sheik it is, with dusky hair. The Sheik of Biledulgerid, who gazes round with frantic stare. " He closed the rear ; his charger fell ; behind he 's left upon the sand : O'ercome with thirst, his favorite wife doth from his gudle - drooping hang ; 48 INTEODTJCTION TO How flashed her eye as she erewhile in triumph rode before her lord ! Across the waste he treiils her now, as from a baldric trails a sword. " The burning sand, swept o'er at night by the grim lion's tail alone, Is by the waving tresses now of yonder helpless woman strown ; It gathers in her tangled locks, dries on her lip the spicy dew, And with its sharp and cruel flints her tender skin it pierces through. " And now, alas ! the Emir fails. — Throbs in his veins the boiling blood. His eyeballs glare, — in lurid lines swells on his brow the purple flood ! With one last kiss, one burning kiss, he wakes to life his Moorish bride. Then flings himself, with frantic curse, on the red desert by her side. " But she, amazed, looks wildly round. ' My lord, awake ! Thou sleepest here ? The sky, but now like molten brass, like polished steel gleams cold and clear. Where now the desert's yellow glare ? A radiance gleams mine eyes before, It sparkles like the sea, whose wave at Algiers breaks along the shore. " ' Its grateful moisture cools my brow ; — yonder its flowing waters gleam ; — A giant mirror, there it shines ;— awake ! perchance 't is Nilus' stream ; OEIENTAL POETKY. 49 Yet no, we travelled south I 'm sure ; the Senegal it then must be; — Or are yon heaving waves indeed the billows of the surging sea? " ' No matter ! it is water still I Awake, my lord 1 O let us hence ! My robe I Ve cast aside ; O come, this deadly scorching fire to quench ! A cooling draught, a quickening bath, will with new strength our limbs indue ; Yon towering fortress once achieved, to all our toils we '11 bid adieu 1 " ' Its crimson banners proudly wave defiance round its por- tals grey ; Its ramparts bristled o'er with spears, — its mosques within, — I all survey ; High-masted vessels in the roads securely ride, in stately rows; Its shops and caravansaries a crowd of pilgrims overflows. " ' My tongue is parched ! Wake up, beloved ! Already nears the twilight now ! ' He lifts his eye, and murmurs hoarse, ' It is the desert's mocking show ! More cruel than the hot Simoom ! Of wicked fiends the barbarous play — ' He stops, — the baseless vision fades, — she sinks upon his lifeless clay." The passion of iove is copiously treated by the bards of Arabia ; their works on this subject abound with as- tonishing images, and are filled with a fire of tenderness beyond all rivalry. One poet says to his mistress : 'In 4 50 INTRODUCTION TO the day of resurrection all the lovers shall be ranged under my banner, all the beauties under thine." An- other says of his : " One night she spread forth three locks of her hair, and so were exhibited four nights together." Shemselnihar takes a lute and sings : " The sun beams from thine eyes, the Pleiades shine from thy mouth, and the full moon rises from the upper bor- der of thy vest. Prom the model of thy form hath God originated beauty, and the fragrance of the zephyr from thy disposition." The descriptive power and fidelity of Arabic poetry in setting forth both the Ufe of the people and the scenery of the clime are remarkable. It conjures up visions of tawny brows, flowing beards, soft eyes, pic- turesque turbans, pawing chargers, and patient drome- daries. "We seem to be there. It is the land of the date-tree and the fountain, the ostrich and the giraffe, the tent and the caravan. It is the home of the simoom and the mirage. It is the world of the desert and the stars. Hospitality waves her torch through the night to win the wanderer to be a guest. Seeking vengeance, with bloodshot eyes and dripping blade, dashes by " on a stallion shod with fire." The very picture, embodi- ment, breath, blaze, of all this is in the lyrics of the Bedouin bards. The richness of their language, and something of the character of the people who use it, are shown in the fact that it has eighty names for honey, five hundred for the lion, and a thousand for the sword! THE SPIEIT-CARAVAN. " On the desert sand bivouacked and silent lay our motley throng ; My Bedouin Arabs slumbered the unbridled steeds among; ORIENTAL POETBT. 51 Far away the moonlight quivered o'er old NiW mountain chain, Dromedary-bones lay bleaching, scattered o'er the sandy plain. " Wide awake I lay : — my caftan's ample folds were o'er me spread. Covering breast and feet ; my saddle formed a pillow for my head ; There I thrust my purse, together with the date-tree's fruit ; and near I had placed my naked sabre, with my musket and my spear. " AU was silent, save the rustle by the dying embers made, Save the wheeling of the vulture, from its distant eyrie strayed ; Save when an impatient charger, firmly tethered, pawed the ground. Or a rider snatched his weapons, dreaming in his sleep profound. " Lo ! the firm earth trembles ! yonder, ghastly shapes are gliding by Through the inoonlight ; , o'er the desert savage beasts in terror fly ! Snorting rear the frightened chargers ; — grasps his flag our leader bold, — 'Lo! the spirit caravan,' he murmurs, and lets go his hold. " Ay, they come ! — Before the camels see the spectral driv- ers glide ; Seated on their stately saddles, unveiled women proudly ride; 52 INTRODUCTION TO By their side appear young maidens, bearing pitchera, like Rebecca ; Troops of pbantom riders follow, — on they rush with speed to Mecca. " StiU they come ! — the train is endless, — who can count the number o'er ? See, the scattered bones of camels rise, instinct with life once more ; And the whirling sand, whose masses o'er the desert darkly rolled, Changes into dusky drivers, who the camel-bridles hold. " This the night when all the creatures, swallowed by the sandy main, Whose storm-driven dust distressed us, as we crossed the burning plain. And whose mouldering skulls were trodden 'neath our horses' hoofs to-day. Come to life, and in procession haste at Mecca's shrine to pray. " More, still more ! — not yet have passed us those who close the ghastly train ; And the first appear already, flying back with slackened rein; From the mountains, lying yonder, whirling with the light- ning's speed. They have passed to Babelmandib, ere I cotdd unloose my steed. " Now make ready ! — loose the chargers, — every rider in his seat ! Tremble not as the distracted herd, when they the lion meet! ORIENTAL POETKT. 53 Let the spectres' flowing garments touch you as they rustle by; Allah call ! — and on their camels let the phantom riders fly! " Wait until the morning breezes in your turbans wave the plumes, Morning red and morning breezes ■will consign them to their tombs ; Back to dust these nightly pilgrims will return at break of day ; Lo! it glimmers, and my charger greets it with a joyous neigh." There is something romantic and touching in an Arab's proud and tender love for his horse. A young warrior is slaughtered in battle : when his steed comes home, his mother takes its hoof in her bosom, and kisses its head, and presses her cheek against its neck. Says Hassan to his mare, in Bayard Taylor's fine and faith- ful lines : — " Come, my beauty ! come, my desert darling ! On my shoulder lay thy glossy head I Fear not, though the barley-sack be empty, Here 's the half of Hassan's scanty bread. " Bend thy forehead now, to take my kisses ! Lift in love thy dark and splendid eye : Thou art glad when Hassan mounts the saddle, ■ — Thou art proud he owns thee : so am I. " We have seen Damascus; O my beauty ! And the splendor of the Pashas there : What 's their pomp and riches ? Why, I would not Take them for a handful of thy hair ! " 54 INTEODUCTION TO Next to his mistress and his steed the Arab loves the pahn-tree. I have read an Arab poem which, in a hun- dred and thirty-six couplets, celebrates the hundred and thirty-six uses to which the leaves and fibres of the various palms are applied. Turniag to Peesiau poetry, we are at once con- fronted by the ShS,h Nameh, Firdousi's immortal epic. When the humble Firdousi came from his garden at Tus to the Sultan's residence, the three court poets saw him coming, and thought by a trick to shame him away. As he approached, they told him that they conversed with no one unless, when they had recited three verses, he could supply a rhyme to the third line. They had agreed to end that line with a word having but one rhyme in the language, the name of a legendary hero. The first, addressing a beautiful maid, says : — " The light of the moon to thy splendor is weak " ; The second adds : " The rose is eclipsed by the bloom of thy cheek": Then the third continues : " Thine eyelashes dart through the folds of the joshun " ; Firdousi instantly subjoins : " Like the javelin of Giw in the battle with Poshun." Surprised and delighted, the worthy trio introduced the stranger to Mahmoud, who was so pleased with his tal- ents and manners that he soon employed him to versify the ancient history and myths of the nation. The re- sult was that great poem, which is now read in so many languages, and whose perpetual fame is secure. The Shah Nameh is a structure of fable and exaggeration on a basis of historic fact. It abounds with giants demons OBIENTAL POETRY. 5S prodigies, magicians, and miraculous monstrosities, but at the same time has many episodes of marvellous puri- ty, elegance, and interest, and is crowded with rare gems both of thought and rhetoric. A writer familiar with the original Persian of this work tells us, that " from be- ginning to end it is one unbroken current of exquisite melody. Verse after verse ripples on the ear, and washes up its tribute of rhyme; and we stand, as it were, on the shore, and gaze with wonder into the world that lies buried beneath, — a world of feeling, and thought, and action, that has passed away from earth's memory for ever, whilst its palaces and heroes are dim- ly seen mirrored below, as in the enchanted lake of the Arabian story." One of the most beautiful epi- sodes in the Shah Ndmeh — the story of Sohrab — has been best put into English by Matthew Arnold. It is, to say the least, in all the choicest quahties of poetry fuUy equal to any passage of the same length in Ho- mer's Iliad. Pirdousi closes the history of Peridun, the most virtuous of his heroes, with this forcible appli- cation of a beautiful moral ; — " Yet Peridun was not an angel, Nor was he formed of musk or ambergris : He gained his fame by justice and generosity. Be thou generous and just, and thou art a Peridun." When Pirdousi had finished his gigantic task, and laid the magnificent result — sixty thousand rhymed coup- lets — at the feet of the Sultan, whose mind' had been poisoned against him by his envious rivals, his royal master insulted him by sending a petty sum of copper money as his reward. The poet's wounded spirit re- 56 INTRODUCTION TO coiled in bitter anger. He wrote a most stinging sat- ire, and, having sent it to the ungrateful monarch, fled from the empire. The following specimen of this re- markable invective is very striking. I quote from a valuable series of articles on Persian Poetry to be found in Eraser's Magazine, Vols. XVni. - XXL " In Mahmoud hope not thou to find One virtue to redeem his mind ! His thoughts no generous transports fill, To truth, to faith, to justice, chUl ! Son of a slave, his diadem In vain may glow with many a gem : Exalted high in power and place, Out bursts the meanness of his race ! " Take of some bitter tree a shoot, In Eden's gardens plant the root ; Let waters from th' eternal spring Amidst the boughs their incense fling : Though bathed and showered with honey-dew, •' Its native baseness springs to view : i|- After long care and anxious skill .-M The fruit it bears is bitter still ! " Place thou within the spicy nest, Where the bright phoenix loves to rest, A raven's egg, and mark thou well, When the vile bird has chipped his shell. Though fed with grains from trees that grow Where Salsebil's pure waters flow. Though airs from Gabriel's wing may rise To fan the cradle where he lies, Though long their patient cares endure, He proves at last a bird impure ! ORIENTAL POBTET. 57 " A viper nurtured in a bed Where roses all their beauties spread, Though nourished with the drops alone Of waves that spring from Allah's throne, Is stUl a poisonous reptile found, And with its venom taints the ground ! " Hadst thou, degenerate prince 1 but shown One single virtue as thy own, Then thou hadst gloried in my &me. And built thyself a deathless name. O Mahmoud ! though thou fear me not. Heaven's vengeance will not be forgot ; Shrink, tyrant ! from my words of fire. And wither in a poet's ire ! " As we enter the realm of Persian lyric poetry, we approach the most intoxicating cordials and the dainti- est viands anywhere furnished at the world-banquet of literature. The eye is inebriate at sight of ruby vases filled with honey, and crystal goblets brimmed with thick-purpled wine, and golden baskets full of sliced pomegranates. The flavor of nectarines, tamarinds, and figs is on the tongue. If we lean from the balcony for relief, a breeze comes wafted over acres of roses, and the air is full of the odor of cloves and precious gums, sandalwood and cedar, frankincense forests, and cinna- mon groves. A Persian poet of rich genius, who wrote but little, being asked why he did not produce more, re- plied: "I intended, as soon as I should reach the rose- trees, to fill my lap, and bring presents for my compan- ions ; but when I arrived there, the fragrance of the roses so intoxicated me that the skirt of my robe slipped from my hands." The true Persian poet, as Mirtsa 58 INTEODUCTION TO Schaffy declares, in his songs burns sun, moon, and stars as sacrifice on the altar of beauty. Every kiss the maid- ens plant on his lips springs up as a song in his mouth. One describes a battle-field looking as if the earth was covered over with crimson tulips. The evening star is a moth, and the moon the lamp. A devotee in a dream heard the cherubs in heaven softly singing the poetry of Saadi, and saying, " This couplet of Saadi is worth the hymns of angel- worship for a whole year.'' Upon awak- ing he went to Saadi and found him fervently reciting the following lines : — " To pious minds each verdant leaf displays A volume teeming with th' Almighty's praise." The Persian seems bom with a lyre in his hand and a song on his tongue. It is related of the celebrated poet, Abderrahman, son of Hissftn, that when an infanl^ being stung by a wasp, he ran to his father, crying in spontaneous verse : ' Father, I have been stung by an insect I know not, but his breast -, With white and yellow spots is covered, like the border of my vest. The tones of the Persian harp are extremely tender and pathetic. They seem to sigh, Wherever sad. Mem- ory walks in the halls of the past, her step wakes the- echoes of long-lost joys. They frequently accord with a strain like this : — " I saw some handfuls of the rose in bloom With bands of grass suspended from a dome. I said, ' What means this worthless grass, that it Should in the rose's fairy circle sit ? ' OEIENTAL POETKT. 59 Then wept the grass, and said: 'Be still! and know The kind their old associates ne'er forego. Mine is no beauty, hue, or fragrance, true ! But in the garden of my Lord I grew ! ' " Among the epic poets of Persia, Firdousi is chief ; among the romantic poets, Nisami ; among the moral- didactic, Saadi ; among the purely lyric, Haflz ; among the religious, . Ferideddin : Attar. In their respective provinces these indisputably and unapproached bear the palm. There are three objects as famous in Persian poetry as the Holy Grail in the legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Eound Table. One is Jemschid's cup. This was a magic goblet with seven circling lines divid- ing it into seven compartments, corresponding to the seven worlds. Filling it with wine, Jemschid had only to look in it and behold aU the events of the creation, past, present, and future. " It is that goblet round whose wondrous rim The enrapturing secrets of creation swim." Firdousi has described Jemschid upon a certain oc- casion consulting this cup. " The vessel in his hand revolving shook. And earth's whole surface glimmered on his look : Nor less the secrets of the starry sphere. The what, and when, and how, depicted clear : From orbs celestial to the blade of grass, All nature floated in the magic glass." Another is Solomon's signet-ring. Such were the in- credible virtues of this little talisman, that the touch of it exorcised all evil spirits, commanded the instant pres- ence and services of the Genii, laid every secret bare, 60 INTRODUCTION TO and gave its possessor almost unlimited powers of knowledge, dominion, and performance. The third is Iskander's mirror. By looking on this the future was revealed, unknown climes brought to view, and what- ever its owner wished made visible. By means of this glass, Alexander — for the Oriental Iskander is no other — accomplished the expedition to Paradise, so celebrated in the mythic annals of the East. There is scarcely any end to the allusions and anecdotes referring to these three wondrous objects. There are likewise three pairs of lovers whose court- ship and fortunes are staple subjects with the Persian bards. Hatifl is thought to have best sung the loves of LeUa and Majnun. Nisami is identified with the finest portrayal of the affection and fate of Khosru and Shi- reen. And Jami has, in his telling of the story of Jo- seph and Zuleika, distanced all rivals. But on each of the three pairs scores of distinguished lyrists have tried their powers. In Nisami's Khosru and Shireen occurs the remarkable episode of FerhM. Ferhad was a sculptor of transcendent genius, who, from his passionate love for Shireen, was a troublesome rival to Khosru. The king, to get rid of his presence by engaging him in an impossible task, promised that if he would, unaided, cut through the impassable mountain of Beysitoun a channel for a river, and hew all the masses of rock into statues, the lovely maid he adored should be the reward of his labors. The slave of love accepted the condition. The enamored statuary commenced liis work, crying, every time he struck the rock, " Alas, Shireen ! " " On lofty Beysitoun the lingering sun Looks down on ceaseless labors, long begun ; OMENTAL POETET. 61 The mountain trembles to the echoing sound Of falling rocks that from her sides rebound. Each day, all respite, all repose, denied, Without a pause the thundering strokes are pUed ; The mist of night around the summits coils, But still Ferhad, the lover-artist, toils. And still, the flashes of his axe between, He sighs to every wind, ' Alas, Shireen ! ' A hundred arms are weak one block to move Of thousands moulded by the hand of love Into fantastic shapes and forms of grace, That crowd each nook of that majestic place. The piles give way, the rocky peaks divide. The stream comes gushing on, a foaming tide, — A mighty work for ages to remain. The token of his passion and his pain. As flows the milky flood from Allah's throne, Rushes the torrent from the yielding stone. And, sculptured there, amazed, stern Khosru stands, And frowning sees obeyed his harsh commands : While she, the fair beloved, with being rife. Awakes from glowing marble into life. O hapless youth ! O toil repaid by woe ! A king thy rival, and the world thy foe. Will she wealth, splendor, pomp, for thee resign, And only geniiS, truth, and passion thine ? Around the pair, lo ! chiselled courtiers wait. And slaves and pages grouped in solemn state ; From columns imaged wreaths their garlands throw, And fretted roofs with stars appear to glow : Fresh leaves and blossoms seem around to spring. And feathered throngs their loves seem murmuring. The hands of Peris might have wrought those stems Where dew-drops hang their fragile diadems, And strings of pearl and sharp-cut diamonds shine, New from the wave, or recent from the mine. 62 INTEODTJCTION TO ' Alas, Shireen ! ' at every stroke he cries, — At every stroke fresh miracles arise. ' For thee my life one ceaseless toil has been ; Inspire my soul anew, — alas, Shireen ! ' " Ferhad achieved his task, and -with such exquisite skill and taste, that the most expert statuaries and polishers from every part of the vrorld, coming to be- hold his works, bit the finger of astonishment and were confounded at the genius of that distracted lover. Fer- h§,d was pausing, weary, at the completion of his toil, with his chisel in his hand, when his treacherous rival sent him the false message that Shireen was dead. " He heard the fatal news, — ; no word, no groan ; He spoke not, moved not, stood transfixed to stone. Then, with a frenzied start, he raised on high His arms, and wildly tossed them towards the sky ; Far in the wide expanse his axe he flung. And from the precipice at once he sprung. : The rocks, the sculptured caves, the valleys green, Sent back his dying cry, — ' Alas, Shireen ! ' " Furthermore, there are five standard allegories of hapless love which the poets of Persia have wrought ; out in innumerable forms of passionate imagery and beauteous versification. The constant Nightingale loves the Eose, and when she perishes, his laments pain the evening air, and fill grove and garden with heart-break- ing melodies. " The bulbul wanders to and fro ; His wing is weak, his note is low ; In vain he wakes his song, Since she he wooed so long No more sheds perfume on the air around : Her hundred leaves lie scattered on the ground ; OEIENTAL POETKY. QS Or if one solitary bud remain, The bloom is past, and only left the stain. Where once amidst the blossoms was his nest, Thorns raise their daggers at his bleeding breast." The Lily loves the Sun, and opens the dazzling white of her bosom to his greeting smile as he rises ; and when he sets, covers her face and droops her head, forlorn, all night. The Lotus loves the Moon; and soon as his silver light gilds the waters, she lifts her snowy neck above the tide, and sheds the perfume of her amorous breath over the waves, till shaming day ends her dalliance. The Ball loves the Bat, and still solicitingly returns, flying to meet him, however oft and cruelly repulsed and spumed. The Moth and the Ta- per are two fond lovers separated by the fierce flame. He draws her with resistless invitation : she flies with reckless resolve ; the merciless flame devours her, and melts bim away. From this rapid look at the wealth of the L-anian bards, let us now turn, for a moment, to the Sufis. The circulating life-sap of Siifism is piety, its efllorescence is poetry, which it yields in spontaneous abundance of brilliant bloom. The Siifis are a sect, of comparatively modern origin, which sprouted from the trunk of Mo- hanjmedanism, where the mysticism of India was graft- ed into it, and was nourished in the passionate sluggish- ness of Eastern reverie by the soothing dreams and fanatic fires of that wondrous race and clime. They flourished chiefly in Persia, but rightfully claimed as virtual members of their sect the most distinguished religionists, philosophers, and poets of the whole Orient for thousands of years ; because all these agreed with 64: INTRODUCTION TO them in the fundamental principles of their system of thought, rules of Ufe, and aims of aspiration. A de- tailed account of the Siifis may be found in Sir John Malcolm's History of Persia, and a good sketch of their dogmas is presented in Tholuck's Sufism ; but the best exposition of their experience and literary expression is afforded by Tholuck's Anthology from the Oriental Mystics. The Siifls are a sect, of meditative devotees, whose absorption in spiritual contemplations and hal- ' lowed raptures is unparalleled, whose piety penetrates to a depth where the mind gropingly staggers among the bottomless roots of being, in mazes of wonder and de- light, and reaches to a, height where the soul loses itself among the roofless immensities of glory in a bedazzled and boundless ecstasy. As a specimen, read THE SUCCESSFUL SEAECH. " I was ere a name had been named upon earth, — Ere one trace yet existed of aught that has birth, — When the locks of the Loved One streamed forth for a sign, And being was none save the Presence Divine ! Ere the veil of the flesh for Messiah was wrought. To the Godhead I bowed in prostration of thought 1 I measured intently, I pondered with heed, (But ah fruitless my labor !) the Cross and its Creed. To the Pagod I rushed, and the Magiau's shrine, But my eye caught no glimpse of a glory divine I The reins of research to the Caaba I Isent, Whither hopefully thronging the old and young went ; Candahir and Herdt searched I wistfully through, Nor above nor beneath came the Loved One to view ! > I toiled to the summit, wild, pathless, and lone, Of the globe-girding Kaf, but the Phoenix had flown. ORIENTAL POETRY. 65 The seventh earth I traversed, the seventh heaven explored, But in neither discerned I the Court of the Lord I I questioned the Pen and the Tablet of Fate, But they whispered not where He pavilions his state. My vision I strained, but my God-scanning eye No trace that to Godhead belongs could descry. But when I my glance turned within my own Dreast, Lo ! the vainly sought Loved One, the Godhead confessed I In the whirl of its transport my spirit was tossed TiU each atom of separate being I lost : And the bright sun of Tauriz a madder than me. Or a wilder, hath never yet seen, nor shall see." Their aim is a union with God so intimate that it be- comes identity, wherein thought is an involuntary, intui- tive grasp and fruition of universal truth ; and wherein feeling is a dissolving and infinite delirium filled with the perfect calmness of unfathomable bliss. For the grad- ual training of the soul unto the winning of this incom- parable and last attainment, they have devised a system of means whose simplicity and complicaltion, adapted completeness, — regular stages of initiation and grada- tions of experience, spiritual frictions and magnetisms, stimulants for some faculties, soporifics for others, di- versified disciplines and educations for all, — are aston- ishingly fitted to lead the disciple regularly on to the marvellous result they desire. And it could scarcely fail of effect, if faithfully tried, even in the colder airs a&d on the more phlegmatic natures of the "West. How finely drawn the subtile experience and beautiful thought in the following anecdote of Eabia, the cele- brated Mohammedan saint ! We give it as told after Tholuck by James Freeman Clarke. 5 66 INTRODTTCTION TO THETHREK STAGES OF PIETY. Rabia, sick upon her bed, By two saints was visited, Holy Malik, Hassan wise, — ' Men of mark in Moslem eyes. Hassan says, ." Whose prayer is pure Will God's chastisements endure." Malik from a deeper sense Uttered his experience : " He who loves his Master's choice Will in chastisement rejoice." Kabia saw some selfish will In their maxims lingering still. And replied, " O men of grace ! He who sees his Master's face Will not in his prayer recall That he is chastised at all." The passage througti the classified degrees of attain- ment in the mystic life they call "the travelling by steps up to heaven." The Siifi poets are innumerable, but their universally acknowledged head and master is the celebrated Mew- lana Dschelaleddin Rumi, the greatest mystic poet of the whole Orient, the oracle of the devotees, the night- ingale of the contemplative life, the lawgiver in piety, the founder of the principal order of Dervishes, and au- thor of the Mesnavi. The Mesnavi is a vast and famous double-rhymed ascetic poem, an inexhaustible coffer of Siifi lore and gems. From the banks of the Ganges to the Bosporus it is the hand-book of all Sufis, the law- book and ritual of aU the mystics. From this work, says Von Hammer, this volcanic eruption of inspira- OBIENTAL POETRY. 67 tion, breaks fortli the inmost peculiarity of Oriental mysticism, a solitary self-direction towards the loftiest goal of perfection over the contemplative way of Divine Love. On the wings of the highest religious inspira- tion, which rise far beyond all outer forms of positive religion, adoring the Eternal Essence, in its completest abstraction from everything earthly, as the purest foun- tain of eternal light, soars Dschelaleddin, above suns and moons, above time and space, above creation and fate, beyond the primeval decrees of destiny, beyond the sentence of the last judgment, forth into infinitude, where he melts into unity with the Endless Being as endless worshipper, and into the Boundless Love as boundless lover, ever forgetful of himself, having the Absolute in view ; and, instead of closing his poems, like other great poets, with his own name, he always makes the name of his mystic master the keystone to the dia- mond arch of his fire-ghazels. The Sufi turns inward for his aims and joys, with a scornful superiority to all visible rituals. He says that one hour of secret meditation and silent love is of more avail than seventy thousand years of outward worslvip. When, with great toils and sufferings, Rabia had effect- ed the pilgrimage to Mecca, and saw the people praying around the Caaba, she beat her breast and cried aloud : — " O heart ! weak follower of the weak, That thou shouldst traverse land and sea, In this far place that God to seek Who long ago had come to thee ! " When a knowledge of the Supreme has been attained, there is no need of ceremonies ; when a soft, refreshing 68 INTKODtrCTION TO breeze blows from the south, there is no need of a fan. As an illustration of this phase may be perused the following fine poem translated by Professor Falconer. It may be fitly entitled THE EELIGION OF THE HEART. " Beats there a heart within that breast of thine ? Then, compass reverently its sacred shrine : For the true spiritual Caaba is the heart, And no proud pile of perishable art. When God ordained the pilgrim rite, that sign Was meant to lead thy thought to things divine. A thousand times he treads that round in vain Who e'en one human heart would idly pain. Leave wealth behind ; bring God thy heart, — best light To guide thy wavering steps through Ufe's dark night. God spurns the riches of a thousand coffers, And says, ' My chosen is he his heart who offers. Nor gold nor silver seek I, but above AH gifts the heart, and buy it with my love ; Yea, one sad, contrite heart, which men despise. More than my throne and fixed decree I prize.' Then think not lowly of thy heart, though lowly, For holy is it, and there dwells the Holy. God's presence-chamber is the human breast ; Ah happy he whose heart holds such a guest ! " Every consistent Sufi is an optimist, one who denies the reality of evil. In his poems he mingles the fight- ing limits of light and darkness, dissolves the rocky boundaries of right and wrong, and buries all clamor- ous distinctions beneath the level sea of pantheistic uni- ty. All drops, however driven forth, scalded in deserts j or frozen on mountains, belong to the ocean, and, by OMENTAL POETRY. 69 omnipotent attractions, will finally find their way home, to repose and flow with the tidal uniformity of the all- embracing deep. "Vice and virtue, purity and corrup- tion, birth and decay, cruelty and tenderness, ■_ — all antagonistic elements and processes ai-e equally the manifestations and workings of God. From him all spirits proceeded, and to him they are ever returning ; or in the temple, or on the gibbet, groaning in sinks of degraded sensuality and want, or exulting in palaces of refinement and splendor, they are equally climbing by irresistible affinities and propulsions towards their na- tive seat in Deity. " Yet spake yon purple mountain, Yet said yon ancient wood, That night or day, that love or crime. Leads aU souls to the good. " This optimistic denial of the reality of evU is fre- quently brought out by the Sufi, with a sudden empha- sis, an unflinching thoroughness, in forms and guises of mystic reason, wondrous beauty, and bewildering sub- tlety, which must astound a Christian moralist. The SUfl's brain is a magazine of transcendent mysteries and prodigious conceits, his faith an ocean of dusky bliss, his illuminated tenderness a beacon of the Infinite Light. An important trait of the Siifi belief is contained in the idea, zealously held by them all, and suflfusing most of their poetry, that death is ecstasy. " A lover on his death-bed lay, and o'er his face the while. Though anguish racked his wasted frame, there swept a fitful smUe : 70 INTRODUCTION TO A flush his sunken cheek o'erspread, and to his faded eye Came li^ht that less spoke earthly bliss than heaven- breathed ecstasy. And one that weeping o'er him bent, and watdhed the ebb- ing breath, Marvelled what thought gave mastery o'er that dread hour of death. ' Ah, when the Faik, adored through life, lifts up at length,' he cried, ' The veil that sought from mortal eye immortal charms to hide, 'Tis thus true lovers, fevered long with that sweet mystic fire, Exulting meet the Loved One's gaze, and in that glance expire ! ' " Death plunges the heated, weary, thirsting soul into a flood of delicious relief and repose, the unalloyed and ceaseless fruition of a divine delight. The past was one sweet ocean of Divinity, the future is another, the pres- ent interposes, a blistering and dreary strand, between. To their hushed ear " Some Seraph whispers from the verge of space: ' Make not these hollow shores thy resting-place ; Born to a portion in thy Maker's bliss. Why linger idly in a waste like this ? ' " From their heavenly yearning breaks the exclama- tion, " O the bliss of that day when I shall depart from this desolate mansion, and my soul shall find rest, and I shall follow the traces of my Beloved ! " From their exhilarating anticipation of pleasure and glory yet un- tasted and unglimpsed behind the veil, rises the rejoice- ful cry, — OBIENTAL POETRY. 71' " Blest time that frees me from the bonds of clay, To track the Lost One through his airy course : Like motes exulting in their parent ray, My kindling spirit rushes to its Source ! " There are thoughts and sentiments in these poems which ought, however suggested, and wherever recog- nized, to smite us with subduing wonder, and to fill us with sympathetic longing ; which ought magnetically to strike with opening fe and desire that side of our souls which looks upon infinity and eternity, and where- through, in favored hours, we thrill to the visiting in- fluences of boundless Mystery and nameless Love, with a rapture of calmness, a vision of heaven, a perfect com- munion of the Father, confessing with electric shudders of awe and joy the motions of the Spirit, as God's hand wanders solemnly among the chords of the heart. In conclusion, I will specify the principal traits which belong in a distinctive degree to Oriental poetry. The first one that attracts notice is an airy, winged, exult- ant liberty of spirit, an unimpeded largeness and ease of movement, an intense enthusiasm. This gives birth to extravagance. Ciompare in this respect the Arabian Nights' Entertainments with the Waverley Novels. Its lower form is a revelling or deliberate fancy, abounding in lawless conceits, sometimes puerile, sometimes amaz- ing. " The bird of understanding hath fled from the nest of my brain." " The sun in the zenith is a golden falcon hovering over his azure nest." The higher form of this trait is the spontaneous transport of an inspired and free imagination, producing the most stupendous conceptions, infusing a divine soul through all dead sub- stance, melting everything iato its own moulds, filling a 72 INTRODUCTION TO new universe with new marvels of beauty and delight. Almost every page of true Eastern poetry illustrates this. " The world is a bud from the bower of Grod's beauty, the sun a spark from the Ught of his wisdom, and the sky a bubble on the ocean of his power." The lover tells his mistress, that had he been dead a thou- sand years, if she should walk over his grave his ashes would thrill as she passed, and his heart instantly blos- som through the sod into roses beneath her tread. Mah- moud says, " In the eye of a gnat sleeps an elephant ; in a kernel of corn already lie many thousands of har- vests; in yon dew-drop as an exile the Euphrates is banished ; in that mustard-seed, thy heart, thrones the Lord who inhabiteth immensity." This quickening faculty often gives a tremendous force to expression, as when Saadi addresses a mean vUlain in these terms : — " All would that wall with loathing fly Which bore impressed thy effigy ; And if thy lot in Eden fell, All others would make choice of Hell ! " A very striking pecuharity of the Oriental Muse in general is a singular copiousness of comparison. Noth- ing is too remote or near, too common or solitary, too subhme or trivial, to furnish a similitude with something else. A band of Mamlouks with drawn swords sur- round the house as the black surrounds the pupil of the eye. True these parallels are sometimes very trite and unmeaning, but they are often wonderfully subtile, felici- tous, and beautiful. The sun at dawn, rushing over the mountains, is a lion chasing the black gazelle, night. ORIENTAL POETBT. 73 A hideous object is ugly as a peacocji's foot. A star- less night is black as the book of sins in the judgment- day. The lapwing waves its pinions towards the earth even as the Magi bow before the sacred fire. In the heart of a bereaved unfortunate the vestiges of departed happiness are left as the ashes are left where a departed caravan once encamped. Almost every thought is clothed in a metaphor. Is greatness cahn? n " A stone makes not great rivers turbid grow : When saints are vexed, their shaUowness they show ! " Has rarity a charm ? " Could every hailstone to a pearl be turned, Pearls in the mart like oyster-shells were spurned 1 " When an avaricious man is to be described, we read : " If the sun on his table-cloth instead of dry bread lay, In all the world none would behold again the light of day ! " And when it is to be said that uncleanness or disease is remedUessly repulsive, we have this : " Ne'er wUl the orange, from the Sultan's hand Once on the dunghill faUen, more there rest ; Though thirsty, none will water e'er demand, When ulcerated lips the jar have pressed !" Upon the letter of his life every man finds the seal of God's mercy. Water is one in look and substance, but the glasses from which men drink it are many in shape and hue. All religions' are diversities of the one true faith, as all colors are modifications of the one white light The apologue, fable, or parable, — the conveyance of instruction or admonition in the form of a brief, striking 74 INTEODtrCTlON TO Story, — is characteristic of Eastern poetry as well as prose. This is well exemplified in the New Testament. It is also supposed that most of the fables of ^sop were imported from the earher Indian literature, — though this has been denied by some, for mstauce, by Weber in his reply to Wagener's prize essay on the " Connec- tion between the Indian Fables and the Greek." But it is unquestionable that neariy all the poetic produc- tions of the East are crowded with brief, sweet, touch- ing, ingenious, hortatory apologues. And thousands of the happiest specimens of this kind of composition, known now among the modern nations of the Occident, were drawn from the vast stores of the Orient. In these stories the emphatic aphoristic tendency of the Eastern literary mind is almost everywhere displayed. " A gay experience of good fortune makes man shallow and fidvolous ; deep grief makes him wise." " Should you a cistern with rose-water fill, A dog dropped in it would defile it still." "It is easier to dig a rooted mountain up with a needle, than to pluck pride from the heart." As an ex- empUfication of this head I must here cite Mr. Clarke's admirable versification of the story, rendered from the Persian by Tholuck, called THE CALIPH AND SATAN. In heavy sleep the Caliph lay, When some one called, " Arise and pray I " The angry Caliph cried, " Who dare Rebuke his king for slighted prayer ? " ORIENTAL POETET. 75 Then, from the cprner of the room, A voice cut sharply through the gloom : — " My name is Satan. Rise ! obey Mohammed's law : Awake, and pray." " Thy words are good," the Caliph said, " But their intent I somewhat dread ; For matters cannot well be worse, Than when the thief says, ' Guard your purse.' I cannot trust your counsel, friend, It surely hides some wicked end." Said Satan : " Near the throne of God, In ages past, we devils trod ; Angels of light, to us 't was given To guide each wandering foot to Heaven. Not wholly lost is that first love, Nor those pure tastes we knew above. Eoaming across a continent, The Tartar moves his shifting tent, But never quite forgets the day When in his father's arms he lay ; So we, once bathed in love divine, Recall the taste of that rich wine. God's finger rested on my brow, — That magic touch, I feel it now ! I fell, 't is true, — O ask not why ! For still to God I turn my eye ; 76 INTKODUCTION TO It was a chance by whicli I fell ; Another takes me back from Hell. 'T was but my envy of mankind, The envy of a loving mind. Jealous of men, I could not bear God's love with this new race to share. But yet God's tables open stand, His guests flock in from every land. Some kind act toward the race of men May toss us into Heaven again. A game of chess is all we see, — And God the player, pieces we. White, black, — queen, pawn, — 't is all the same, For on both sides he plays the game. Moved to and fro, from good to ill, We rise and fall as suits his will." The Caliph said : " If this be so I know not, but thy guile I know ; For how can I thy words believe. When even God thou didst deceive. A sea of lies art thou, — our sin Only a drop that sea within." " Not so,'' said Satan ; " I serve God, His angel now, and now his rod. In tempting, I both bless and curse. Make good men better, bad men worse. OKIENTAL POETKT. 77 Good coin is mixed with bad, my brother, I but distinguish one from th' other." " Granted," the Caliph said ; " but still You never tempt to good, but iU. Tell, then, the truth, for well I know You come as my most deadly foe." Loud laughed the fiend. " You know me well ; Therefore my purpose I will tell. If you had missed your prayer, I knew A swift repentance would ensue ; And such repentance would have been A good, outweighing far the sin. I chose this humbleness divine, Born out of fault, should not be thine ; Preferring prayers elate with pride. To sin with penitence allied." In these parables and anecdotes a cunning wit, an elevated ethical tenderness, and a sober under-tone axe in general remarkably mingled. " Who doth the raven for a guide invite. Must marvel not on carcasses to light." Saadi was asked what he, an idle poet, was good for. In turn he inquired what was the use of the rose ; and on being told that it was good to be smelled, replied, " And I am good to smell it !" So our Concord Saadi sings, as if responding from to-day and America, over the ages and the sea, to the dead lyrist of Persia : — 78 INTBODTTCTION TO " Tell them, dear, if eyes were made for seeing, Beauty is its own excuse for being," It is said that, when Hafiz died, the jealous and bigoted Dervishes refused him burial, on the ground that he had been a reckless unbeliever, a blaspheming radical. The dispute rose high. At length it was agreed to take a thousand couplets miscellaneously from his poems, write them on slips of paper, place them in a vase, and let an innocent child draw from them, lottery-like, to decide what should be done. This verse came out : Fear not to come where Hafiz' lifeless body lies ; Though deeply sunk in sin, to heaven he will rise. Forthwith he was honorably interred. Sir William Jones says, ".The "Western poets afford no lesson of morality, no tender sentiment, which cannot be found in the writings of the Eastern." A curious feature in the rhetoric of the Oriental bards is the employment of what may be called figures of impossibility, — or the paradox. Their pages fur- nish copious and surprising examples of this. A man who follows vice instead of virtue, folly rather than wisdom, is one who painfully turns up the barren sand with a golden plough, to sow weeds ! he mows a forest of lignum-vitae trees with a crystal scythe ! he puts a jewelled vase on a sandal- wood fire to cook a dish of husks or pebbles ! he devastates a beautiful date-garden to plant nettles there instead of the palms ! To indulge in crime and find peace instead of pain, profit and not punishment, is to milk an ox, eat a rhinoceros's eggs, and see a lion live in the lake like a fish ! " It is written in the sky, on the pages of the air, that good ORIENTAL POETET. 79 deeds shall be done to him who does good deeds to others.' Another very remarkable rhetorical peculiarity of a great deal of Oriental poetry is the most unrestricted use of erotic and bacchanalian phraseology to describe the reUgious life. " There 's never a spot in this wildered 'trorld Where His glory shines so dim But shapes are strung, and hearts are warm, And lips are sweet from Him." An uninitiated reader would often shrink and blush as if the wildest revels of debauchery were laid bare before him, when really the writer is treating of the rapt ex- periences and sacred secrets of piety, the intoxicating draughts and mystic endearments of the Divine Love. The world is a tavern, God the host and bar-tender, life the goblet he extends, and ecstasy the wine he pours. This imagery is carried out consistently through all its details, varied with unrivalled ingenuity, and adorned with infinite splendors of conceit and imagination. " He who is sobered when the winds of evening play on his brow, hath only partaken of earth's buttermilk, and not of God's wine." " He that is once inebriated with that wine, remains drunk until the resurrection-day.'' God is the lost lover, to be sought until found ; and the de- lirious fruition of all desire is undisturbed life in his cloudless presence and in his clasping arms. God is the infinite bodiless beauty and love, whose attributes darken and shimmer through the veils and illusions of nature, and whose embrace, uniting the soul to himself, is speechless bliss and endless rest. Again, this whole province of the world's literature is 80 INTKODUCTION TO enveloped and sfiturated with mysticism, — mysticism of a bewildering quality and comprehensiveness. This mysticism, which is the soul's groping in a world of symbols after realities too vast and elusive, occupies the same place in Eastern literature that is filled by senti- mentality in the modern literature of the West. Boden- stedt affirms that that excessive sentimentality, or mor- bid vagueness of passion, which is so prevalent in the lyric poetry of Germany, is wholly unknown and un- intelligible to the Oriental poets. They always aim at some real, apprehensible object. But to reach this goal they set heaven and earth in motion. No meta- phor lies too far, no thought too high, for them. Where therefore our authors are sentimentahsts, the authors of the East are mystics. They blend an all-confounding metaphysics of unknown subtilty and reach with a delicate, luxuriant, gorgeous sentiment and fancy, and plunge the productions of both in gulfs of inscrutable mystery, or suspend them in the darkness of insuffer- able fight. " One lonely pilgrim, ere the world began. Traversed eternity to visit man, And on the precincts of the holy shrine Prepared an ample cup of love divine. The foaming draught, o'erflowing all the spheres, Dispersed them, whirHng, for unnumbered years, While the rapt seraph, from its ardent brim, Eushed reeling back, and owned 't was not for him." The flood of the infinite rushes over, breaks down, swal- lows up, the fences and walls of the finite, and in the shoreless gleam of its wild waves every distinction van- ishes ; nothing seems everything and all things seem OEIBNTAL , POETBX. 81 nothing. God is at once the performer of the rite of de- votion, the rite itself, the implements by which it is per- formed, and the fruit which it bestows. For the highest qualities of devotional reflection and feeling it would be hard to find anything surpassing this description of THE CONTENTS OF PIETY. '' Allah ! " was all night long the cry of one oppressed with care, |rill softened was his heart, and sweet became his lips with prayer. , Then near the subtle tempter stole, and spake : " Fond bab- bler, cease ! For not one ' Here am I ' has God e!er sent to give the'e peace." With sorrow sank the suppliant's soul, and all his senses fled. But lo ! at midnight, the good angel, Chiser, came, and said : " What ails thee now, my child, and why art thou afraid to pra,y? And why thy former love dost thou repent? declare and say." " Ah ! " cries he, " never once spake God to me, ' Here am I, son.' Cast off methinks I am, and warned far from his gracious throne." To whom the angel answered : " Hear the word from God I bear. ' Go tell,' he said, ' yon mourner, sunk in sorrow and de- spair, Each " Lord, appear ! " thy lips pronounce, contains my "Here am I"; A special messenger I send beneath thine every sigh ; Thy love is but a girdle of the love I bear to thee. And sleeping in thy " Come, O Lord ! " there lies " Here, son ! " from me.' " 6 82 INTKODTJCTION TO Kibhu and Niddgha are conversing, when the kixjg rides by. The following dramatic dialogue ensues. " In- form me, Nidagha, which of these is the elephant, and which the king." " Why, Ribhu, you wiU observe that the elephant is underneath, the king is above him.'' " Yes, but what is meant, Niddgha, by underneath, and by above ? " Niddgha knocks Ribhu down, jumps upon him, and says, " I am above, and you are underneath." " Very well," cries Ribhu, " now tell me which is you, and which is I ! " This mysticism in a thousand shapes and colors pervades the poetry of the East. Oriental poetry is further characterized — by nothing more so — by all that is involved in, accompanies, or flows from an ardent pantheism. God is all, and all is God. He is nature. His perfect face is printed and painted in every atom. " The realms of being to no other bow : Not only all are thine, but all are Thou.'' He is man. The motions of his dealing constitute the experience of the soul. " God'a doors are men : the Pariah hind Admits thee to the perfect Mind." He dwells with all his infinitude in every heart. Many recondite comparisons and arguments are brought for- ward to illustrate how myriads may each wholly possess him without interference. When a millign men gaze on the moon, its perfect orb is given to every eye. Hu- man personality is execrated as a cruel chain, a black prison-wall. Nothing more distinguishes Eastern from Western thought than this passionate desecration of in- dividuality. All conscious spirits, once rent and dis- ORIENTAL POETET. 83 cerpted from the one primeval substance, and banished in material wanderings, pine in exile, and painfully yearn after the banished Lover, with unwearied fond- ness, until he relents, and discloses his presence ; then the smitten and entranced soul falters an instant, sinks into bis embrace, and, lost from the bitter trials of personal being, is found in the everlasting ravishment of Divinity. Since God is the only dynamic reality, evil, of course, is only a shadow. " The world a mighty chess-board we should name ; And God both sides is playing of the game : Moses and Pharaoh seem opposed, for they Do thus God's greatness on two sides display ; They seem opposed, but at the root are one, And each his part allotted has well done." The last characteristic of Oriental poetry to be men- tioned is this. One can read but little of it without no- ticing how it is filled with pensive, diversified, forcible, stUl-recurring contemplations of change, decay, and death, the vanity and transitoriness of all things here, the frail exposures and brevity of earthly fortune and joy, the swift-coming certainty of dissolution. Firdousi once struck in his harp the string named Sighing, and these are the words its melting tones sounded : — " Full many a jocund spring has passed away, And many a flower has blossomed to decay : And human life, still hastening to a close. Finds in the worthless dust its last repose." With a deep, resigned pathos sings Dschelaleddin : " If this world were our abiding-place, we might complain that it makes our bed so hard ; but it is only our night- 84 INTRODUCTION TO quarters on a journey, and who can expect home com^ forts ? " Life is slippery and insecure as a tremulous drop of dew on a lotus-flower. Yet these reflections are not usually gloomy and complaining, but thought- fully submissive and sweetly melancholy. They seek to find comfort for the evanescence of the world in thoughts of its evanescence. And many an Eastern poet in his dirges is no dark raven croaking dolefully in the graveyard of his joys and hopes, but rather a pathetic nightingale in the grove singing of the with- ered rose. And very frequently an enthusiastic ex- ultation in the anticipation of the future, mingles even with the laments poured over the present. " My spirit pines behind its veil of clay For light too heavenly perfect here to shine : Blest time that tears the envious folds away ' Now dimly darkening o'er that radiant shrine ! Poor prisoned exile from a brighter bower ! Not here, not thus, thy wonted lay can rise : O burst thy bonds and let the descant tower, With freshened rapture, in its native skies." The Orientals discourse so often and so earnestly on the fugacity of the world, the idleness of riches, the fickleness of fortune, and the ephemeral fleetness of life, that they have seemed to many a robust-hearted worldling lachrymose sermonizers. But herein the re- gion of the earth they live in, their past history, their form of government, their religion and whole condition, excuse them. On that very soil, roam not their minds back to a time when a hundred thousand warriors sat in the gates of Merde, — to a period long anterior to the day when Moses wooed the daughter of Jethro, — to the OBIENTAL POETET. 85 hour when, at God's voice and finger, young Adam, the fresh rose of humanity, sprang from the magic mould of Eden ? What scenes have come and gone there like dissolving views ! And now the spider hangs her veil undisturbed in the halls of Kai Kosrou, the owl stands sentinel on Haroun Al-Kaschid's fallen palace-towers, the lion forays in the lonesome gardens of Babylon, and the dromedary browses in the silent forecourts of MemT phis. Remembering these things, what morals of dis- appointment, visions of desolation, emotions of bodeful mourning, must flit before them and come over them ! Upon their meditating imaginations rises not the awful form of Egypt, an asterism of conquering dynasties on her glimmering brow, the pyramids diminished at her side, and a sombre landscape of vanquished nations, for- gotten peoples, and unreckoned ages, sloping from her feet ? Tread they not on the ruins of the most mag- nificent kingdoms, the richest states, the most beautiful monuments, of the primeval world ? And of what else do these preach, but the futility of plans and things, the utter vanity of all the pomp and might of universal sway ? From Mount KS,f to the shores of the ocean, from the sea to the deserts of Arabia and the Thebaid, they gaze on the graves of kings, fragments of temples, ruins of royal cities, until again their glances rest on the pyramids and the fast-crumbling tombs of imperial gen- erations. The intelligent contemplator of these things also beholds, around him a people sunk far below the ability to buUd such glorious structures, oppressed with the yoke of poverty, ignorance, and despotism, dwelling among the sepulchres of an ancestral time, and daily destroying . more of their costly remnants, Methmks 86 rtfTKODUCTlON TO such views might teach- even us, the members of a younger race and inhabitants of a new land, to compose many a wise proverb touching the poorness of human glory, and the perishableness of earthly possessions. Ah! well indeed might the Eastern Homer, at the close of his great work, reviewing the checkered annals and pathetic vicissitudes of so many ages and dynasties, exclaim : " I feel no resentriient, I seek not for strife, I wish not for thrones and the glories of life. What is glory to man ? An illusion, a cheat. What did it for Jemschid, the world at his feet ? " In all ages and languages the poet is a preacher. Ge- nius normally loves justice, purity, generosity, — every virtue and every grace. The poet's nature and tem- perament are sensitive to all beauty and goodness. He is alive to the impressiveness of the universe, the splen- dor and gloom of natural phenomena, the portents of fate, the eventful varieties of life and death. Beneath all kaleidoscopic visions of vanity, contemplating the stable fixtures of reality, how can he help exclaiming to hisigiddier brothers: " O fly the glimmer of these haunted plains. Whereon the demon of delusion reigns ! " The loyal and tender, mind which is his endowment re- sponds with pecuUar force and spontaneity to the at- tracting substance and truths of morality. From his chief characteristics and vocation he feels deeply, ob- serves sympathizingly, and thinks much, loves traditions and history, is a child of fancy and hope. But reflec- tion, feeling, learning, experience, and faith furnish a OKIENTAL POETRY. 87 man those vivified lessons whose enforcement is the aim of preaching. Naturally, therefore, the poet is a preacher. History shows this true everywhere, but nowhere so emphatically as with the Orientals. The literature of the East, whether Indian, Arabic, or Per- sian, reveals their poets as the keenest, tenderest, sub- limest, most versatile of preachers. We cannot read a fairy tale without finding in it, quoted from some favor- ite singer, sentiments like this : " There is no hand but God's hand is above it, no oppressor who shall not meet an oppressor stronger than himself." Amidst a magical story of triumphant cruelty and crowned haughtiness, of lust and power, the reader is startled with the lines : " Every son of woman, though long he remains alive, must one day be' carried on the curving bier. How, then, shall he on whose cheeks the dust is to be placed, find diversion or delight in life ? " In the full sweep of his epical narrative Firdousi pauses to moralize, adjur- ing his reader, — " Look at the heavens, how they roll on ; And look at man, how soon he 's gone ! A breath of wind, and then no more : — A world like this should man deplore ? " Every sort of ethical and religious exhortation, from the shrewd maxims of prudent self-culture, by the sharp satires of lofty contempt, to the rarest reaches of devo- tion, we find most admirably expounded and enforced by these golden preachers. The following exquisite fragment, translated by Sir William Jones from the Persian, has long been familiar to thousands : — " On parent knees, a naked, new-horn child, Weeping thou sat'st while all around thee smiled : 88 INTRODUCTION TO So live that, sinking in thy last long sleep, Calm thou mayst smile while all around thee weep.'' Wliere is the expediency of a disciplinary education better urged than in this image ? " O square thyself for use : a stone that may Fit in the wall, is not lefl in the way." It would be hard to satirize the heartless and savage greed of utter selflshness more finely than it is done in the lines, — " There is no ointment for the wolf's sore eyes Like clouds of dust which from the sheep arise." How strikingly the exposure of man, his helpless de- pendence, the need of being always ready, are set forth in these brief words from Saadi ! " One wept all night beside a sick man's bed : At dawn the sick was well, the mourner dead." A "whole world of profound meaning and electrifying eloquence are in the following verses, with which a Persian writer on practical virtue illumines one of his dry pages : -r- " Though human life be reason's dream, Kouse thine ere morning wake it. And offer, up thy heart to Him Who else, unasked, will take it." "With what a beautiful simplicity of wisdom the providen- tial ordering of things as thev are is justified in the little dialogue succeeding ! Khosru says to his beloved Shi- reen : " The Sultanship would be glorious did it remain with one for ever." She replies : " Perceivest thou not that, did it remain for ever with one, thou wonldst never OEIENTAL POETET. 89 have been Sultan at all ? " The spirit of lowly love and forgiving sacrifice will scarcely ever be better uttered than it is in the well-known couplet, — " The sandal-tree, most sacred tree of all, Perfumes the very axe which bids it fall." But as the best single illustration known to me of the Oriental poet in the capacity of preacher, I will cite the celebrated story of the poet at the royal feast I give it as versified, from Sylvestre de Sacy's Ghrestomathie Arahe, by Trench, to whom I am also indebted for three or four couplets previously quoted. THE, FESTIVAL. "Five hundred princely guests before Haroun Al-Kaschid sate, Five hundred princely guests or more admired his, royal state ; " For never had that glory been so royally displayed, Nor ever such a gorgeous scene had eye of man surveyed. " He, most times meek of heart, yet now of spirit too elate, Exclaimed : ' Before me Caesars bow, on me two empires wait. " ' Yet all our glories something lack, we do our triumphs wrong, Until to us reflected back as mirrored clear in song. " ' Therefore call him to whom this power is given, this skill sublime. Now win from us some gorgeous dower with song that fits ' the time.' 90 INTRODUCTION TO " 'My king, as I behold thee now, may I behold thee still, While prostrate worlds before thee bow, and wait upon thy will! " ' May evermore this clear, pure heaven, whence every speck and stain Of trouble far away is driven, above thy head remain ! ' "The Caliph cried: 'Thou wishest well; there waits thee golden store For this; — but oh! resume the spell; I fain would listen more.' " ' Drink thou life's sweetest goblet up, and may its wine, For other's lips a mingled cup, be all unmixed for thine. " ' Live long ; — the shadow of no grief come ever near to thee: As thou in height of place art chief, so chief in gladness he.' " Haroun Al-Kaschid cried again : ' I thank thee ; — but pro- ceed. And now take up a higher strain, and win a higher meed.' " Around that high, magnific haU one glance the poet threw, ■ On courtiers, king, and festival, and did the strain renew. " ' And yet, and yet shalt thou at last lie stretched on bed of death : Then, when thou drawest thick and fast with sobs thy pain- ful breath, — " ' When Azrael glides through guarded gate, through hosts that camp around Their lord in vain, and will not wait, — when thou art sadly bound ORIENTAL POBTEY. 91 " ' Unto thine house of dust alone, O king, when thou must die. This pomp a shadow thou must own, this glory all a lie.' " Then darkness on all faces hung, and through the banquet went Low sounds the murmuring guests ambng of angry dis- content. "And him anon they fiercely urge: 'What guerdon shall be thine ? Why didst thou bring this awful di^ge 'mid feasts, and flowers, and wine ? " ' Our lord demanded in his mirth a strain to heighten glee ; But, lo ! at thine his tears come forth in current swift and free.' " ' Peace 1 — not to him rebukes belong, but rather highest grace; He gave me what I asked, a song to fit the time and place.' "All voices at that voice were stilled; again the Caliph cried : ' He saw our mouths with laughter filled, he saw us drunk with pride, " ' And bade us know that every road, by monarch trod or slave. Thick set with thorns, with roses strewed, doth issue in the grave.' " Tn the absence of everything of the kind from our language, the present crude and hasty sketch of hints at the contents and character of Oriental poetry, may be acceptable and useful. It may serve to give many 92 INTKODUCTION TO ORIENTAL POETRY. persons whose catholic thoughtfuhiess and esthetic sensitiveness, whose temperament and culture, fit them to enjoy it, at least some slight acquaintance with a department of literature unique, alike in essence and treatment, and certainly, in many of the choicest quali- ties of poetry, wholly unrivalled. During the past year the United States government has imported from Pales- tine several specimens of a tree called the Carob, or St. John's Bread, and employed skilful arboriculturists to try and see if it cannot be made to grow and yield fruit, even in a clime and air so remote from its own. It blossoms twice a year, overshadows a space more than thirty yards in diameter, and bears a ton of pods full of sugar and wild-honey. "Who knows but the effort may be successful, and lead to the transplantation and acclimation in America of hundreds of the richest indigenous growths of Asia ? And so might the present humble work — seeking to import into the West, and exhibit there, some specimens of the Thought, Senti- ment, and Fancy of the East — be but a forerunner of many abler works in the same direction, which shall be worthier representations, in our EngUsh speech, of that wonderful Oriental poetry whose most characteristic treasures are as sparkling with the splendor of imagina- tive genius, and as odorous with the fragrance of ex- quisite sensibility, as though they had been "strained through starry strata and the musky loam of Para- dise"! METEICAL SPECIMENS OF THE THOUGHT, SENTIMENT, AND FANCY OF THE EAST. These gems, so long pkom us concealed, Thbie buening eats at length eevealed. THE POETRY OF THE EAST. SELF-SUFFICING "WOBTH. Will sparkling diamonds, in the sunshine raised, Grow dark and worthless if they be not praised ? STIMULUS OF HEEOIC EXAMPLES. For right and freedom when man strives or bleeds. The seed is sown for truest lords and earls : Then love and glory be to those whose deeds Have set the bracelet of the world with pearls ! UNIMPEOTED PRIVILEGES. Through Paradise once went a troop of straying asses, Nor stopped till Hell they reached, where no cool spring nor grass is. Like them he acts who, bom with every want prepared for, Perverts his gifts, and wastes his days, and dies uncared for. 96 SPECIMENS OF THE BEIGHT-HOOFED CHAEGEE. The new moon is a horseshoe of gold wrought by God, And therewith shall the steed of Abdallah be shod."' THE DOUBLE-FLAVOEED APPLE. In Shiraz grows a tree, within the Sultan's bower. Which bears an apple one half sweet, and one half sour. Ah ! such an apple is the world. How sweet it tastes In joy ! how sour when turning round to grief it hastes ! NATURE AND THE MYSTIC. Transfusing Allah's beauties how shall I compare ?■ The Day is his sweet face, the Night his streaming hair. THE SAFE SECEET. A proverb says that what to more than two is known Has ceased to be a mystery, and pubUc grown. The proverb's sense is this : Those two are but thy lips. A secret is quite free when once through them it sUps. imagination's powee. Where but a single ray of Mahmoud's genius strikes and stops, The common granite crumbles into rubies, like pure drops. OEIENTAL POETKT. 97 AN ANTEEIOB STATE: FROM KAHDASA. The king, Dushydnta, torn from fair Sakiintala by fate, In tender mood, all silent musing, in his garden sate. Upon his meditations unexplained emotions stole. And with the most unutterable longings filled his soul. Then, looking in the soft and vasty blue above him domed. And seeking for the source of the strange sadness which he feels, He sighs, " Perchance it is the vague remembrance o'er me steals Of dearest friends with whom in other lives and spheres I roamed." ENVIOUS VANITY. The foolish camel begged of Allah for a pair of horns : Instead of granting them, Allah deprived him of his ears'. Lose not the grace appropriate which already you adorns By seeking what on others as an ornament appears. THE FIEE-WOKSHIPPEES. Zuleika's eyes are suns : whoever look on these, Whate'er their faith before, at once become Parsees. 7 98 SPECIMENS OF THE ELEPHANT AND THE KHINOCBROS. To fight the elephant rhinoceros whets his horn ; For nearest blood relations oft as foes are born. His horn rhinoceros in the elephant's paunch doth thrust, And on it bears him off, — if thou the tale canst trust. But in his eyes run blood and fat through the mangled rind, . Till with his load upon the earth he tumbles blind. Soon then the vulture on their helpless hulks has sprung, To tear out fragments for itself and for its young. THE LUMINOUS TRUTH. " Who will give me his heart," said God, " my love he shaU find." With that speech a resplendent sun fell into my mind. GET THEE BEHIND ME, SATAN ! Turn thou thine eyes from- each seducing sight, For looking whets the ready edge of appetite. OEIEKTAL POETET. 99 INSCKIPTION OVER A PERSIAN SPRING. Beneath these pahn-trees flows this fountain, In endless gush, the joy-tears of yon mountain. Soft-gurgjjng clear, It bubbles here, Amidst the sweet-exhahng flowers O'er which the rock-cliff sternly lowers. pilgrim ! as your parched Hps lave it, Pour out your thanks to Him who gave it. idealism: prom the dabistan. Fartosh believed that nothing here below was real ; The world and its inhabitants were but ideal. To teach his servant this philosophy he thought ; But when, one day, his horse he ordered to be brought That he might ride, the servant brought a wretched ass ! Fartosh with heat demanded how this came to pass. The slave had stolen the horse, but, that shrewd theft to hide. He with his master's metaphysics thus replied : " Thou hast been thinking of a mental image mere ; There was no actual horse in being, it is clear." Fartosh exclaimed : " I see how this has come to pass ; You speak the truth " ; — then plucked the saddle from the ass. 100 SPECIMENS OP And put it on the servant's back, and, bridling him, Mounted and lashed the fellow with unsparing vim ; And when the crude philosopher for mercy cried. And asked the reason of these blows, Fartosh rephed : " There are no blows, and as a whip there is no such thing, 'T is only an illusion you are suffering ! " On this the smarting slave repented of his fault. And brought the missing horse with no demurring halt. THE VICTOK CHEEK. So beautiful thy cheek, that from it goes A wound into the mind of the red rose. Compared with the blush from thy blood that flows, AH yellow with envy is the red rose. SPEAKING THE TRUTH. Otaiye from his earliest youth Was consecrated unto truth ; And if the universe must die Unless Otaiye told a lie. He would defy the last fate's crash. And let all sink in one pale ash. Or ere by any means was wrung A drop of falsehood from his tongue. ORIENTAL POETKT. 101 KETALIATION. A sheep the slaughtering butcher with his knife once met, And said : " Hold out your neck and die ! " The sheep rejoins : " I suffer now for all the twigs and grass I Ve ate : What shall he suffer, then, who eats my fatted loins ? " THE DEVOTED PTTPIL. When Har-govind's dead form was placed upon the pyre, A Rajaput who loved him leaped amidst the fire, And, walking several paces through the flames to reach The feet of him who had been wont his soul to teach. Laid down his loving face against his master's soles. Till naught was left of him but ashes on the coals. zoeoastee's laugh. Zoroaster, soon as bom, gave forth a laugh : Other children weep when first the air they quaff. " Surely some great prophet in this child we clasp," Cried his parents, both Dogduyah and Purshasp. 102 SPECIMENS OP EEGEET OVER A SQUANDERED YOUTH. Ah, five-and-twenty years ago had I but planted seeds of trees, How now I should enjoy their shade, and see their fruit swing in the breeze ! THE CASTES OP INDIA. From Brahma's body came — the ancient legend lasts — Great Jambudwipa's race, divided in four castes. The teachers left the head ; from the arm the warriors sprang ; ' ' The breast the traders bore ; the foot the servants' gang. How shattered is the body's glory and its rest ! The foot upon the earth stands level with the breast ; The arm, deprived of force, has sunk like lifeless lead ; And helpless droops, above, the unprotected head. THE BEAHMIN AND THE SUDKA. A Brahmin proud, poverty's yoke compelled to brook. Entered the service of a Sudra as a cook. OEIENTAL POETKT. 103 He might his master's dishes carry up, the priest, But could not clear away the fragments of the feast. 'T would be unclean to touch what impure hands have left: What booty, then, from all his cooking has he reft ? The Brahmin, that he may not starve, is wont, indeed. To eat his fill before his master he will feed. The leavings of the cook the master's mouth supply ; The master's leavings are for crows and dogs thrown by. It flatters him to have a cook whose scorn he knows WiU not yield precedence to him o'er dogs and crows ! DEPAETTTRE OP THE MYTHIC AGE. Hero-days are gone by, though our bosoms stiU sighing for them bleed ! Wholly vain is all search for the magical goblet of Jemschid. THE POWEK OF WOBDS. The power of words gives death and life, makes war and truce : — In illustration this example I adduce. 104 SPECIMENS OF Learn thou, as did Abou Adheen, fit words to use ; — But as with poison he, with balsam thine infuse. Among the Arabs once a deadly hatred ran Between the royal lines of Hira and Gassan. In Hira, Mundar's son, Aswad, sat on his throne. Gassan's array had from him in the battle flown. But all of royal blood had been pursued and caught, And for release they with a mighty ransom sought. Their wish Aswad would grant; but, with a frowning mien, His cousin rose and spake, — thus spake Abou Adheen : " Not every day does man achieve his hard pursuit, Not every day does fortune offer ripened fruit. He is the wisest man, to act or understand, Who seizes opportunity when near his hand ; And he the justest man who doth his foemen treat With that same fate which he himself from them wOuld meet. It is not wrong the dagger's edge to make them taste, Which they would make thee feel with most unsparing haste. ORIENTAL POETRY. 105 Forgiveness is an ornament which perils those Who dare to wear it in the face of mighty foes. Wouldst break the twig and leave the root within the sward ? Who follow such a course in woe will reap reward. Do not cut off the viper's tail as past he glides, But wisely crush his hateful head before he hides. All men will say, shouldst thou dismiss these captives here, Thou didst it not from generosity, but fear. They offer ransom large, and magnify each gift , Of camelsy sheep ; precious, no doubt, to men of thrift ! What! shall they milk our blood, and we take milk from them ? We shall be cowards called in all the tents of Shem ! From us no ransom would they take in herds or gold ; And shall their forfeit hves by us for pay be sold ? " " Thou art right," exclaimed Aswad, and doomed each one to fall. The words of fierce Abou Adheen thus slew them all. 106 SPECIMENS OF THE HEAET'S EITUAL. A wooden rosary lie never needs, Who tells in love and thought the spirit's beads. THE CONDITIONAL VISION. Where'er the face of earnest faith thou bringest, pure and sweet, Thou there the smiling face of thine approving God shalt meet. THE confidant's CONFIDANT. Do thou thy precious secrets to no other lend : Thy friend another has : beware of thy friend's friend ! THE TWO TEAVELLEES. Says God : " Who comes towards me an inch through doubtings dim, In blazing Ught I do approach a yard towards him.'' THE HAPPY EESTOEATION. Life 's a loan from Him who gave us being, And its value hes in homewards fleeing. OEIENTAL POBTET. 107 THOUGHT rROM CHAEACTEE. The rascal, thinking from his point of view, Concludes that all the world are rascals too. DELATED KETEIBUTION. God's mUls grind slow. But they grind woe. THE GOOD man's EEWAED. Who has good deeds brought well to end, For him the gloomy forests shine ; The whole world is to him a friend, And all the earth a diamond mine. THE PLEDGE AND THE THING. This life is a dim pledge of friendship from our God : Give me the Friend, and the pledge may sink in the sod. , INDEPENDENCE. Cling not to aught that may be snatched from o'er the rim: One fairy tale was all that Jemschid took with him. 108 SPECIMENS OF THE TKANSCENDENTALIST. If, whene'er our souls with Truth's own thoughts are swelling, We for God with pious fear and faith do rightly search, We shall learn that all the world is Love's own dwelling, And but little care for Moslem mosque or Christian church. THE INNEEMOST SHEINE. There is a flesh-lump in man's mortal part, And in this lump of flesh doth beat the heart. And in this heart the deathless spirit bides. And in this spirit conscious mystery hides. And in this mystery deep a light doth glow, And in this light learn thou thy God to know. THE SOUL AND GOD. God and the soul are two birds free, And dwell together in one tree : This eateth various-flavored fruits Of sense's thoughts and world's pursuits ; That tasteth not, nor great nor small, But silently beholdeth all. oriental poetkt. 109 natuee's traditional lament. The sweet current of primeval love stiU flows Throughout the veins of all creation ; else why mourn The broken-hearted bulbuls for the perished rose, Or sigh the gales ^'long the beds dried streams have worn? REFLECTIONS OF DIVINITY. Mirrors Grod maketh aU atoms in space, And fronteth each one with his perfect face. THERE IS NO DANGER. Need'st thou to move Thy skirts above Thy knees, In passing through That flood of glue, This world? "Why I did even Pass through the seven Great seas, And not a drop My foot's bare top Impearled. 110 SPECIMENS or LOST AND FOUND. Thou that wouldst find the Lost One, lose thyself! Nothing but self thyself from Him divides. Ask ye how I o'erpassed the dreary gulf? One step beyond myself, and naught besides. THE BEGGAe'S COUEAGE. To heaven approached a Siifl saint, From groping in the darkness late, And, tapping timidly and faint, Besought admission at God's gate. Said God, " Who seeks to enter here ? " " 'T is I, dear Friend," the saint replied, And trembled much with hope and fear, " If it be thou, without abide." Sadly to earth the poor saint turned. To bear the scourgings of life's rods ; But aye his heart within him yearned To mix and lose its love in Gtod's. He roamed alone through weary years. By cruel men still scorned and mocked, Until, from faith's pure fires and tears, Again he rose, and modest knocked. 188 . Sohljthe,' and God 108 Souls, love-blended .... ... 207 Sound, the, and the Hearer 227 Speck, the spreading .144 Speech, the mellifluous 201 ■Spell, the Resurrection 200 Spring, Inscription over a Persian 99 Squib against the wise Man of Bagdad . . . 214 Subjectivity of Time and Space . . . . 143 Submission, Lesson of 157 Succession, the Good of 224 Siifism defined 242 Suicide, the Mystic's 255 Sunrise, the Battle of . . 245 Table, the Camel's 206 Temples, the two . . 247 Terror, the disarmed . . . . . . 168 Test of the rival Gods 186 The Spring of the Year .... . 201 The deeper Thought .225 The ThoughtJewel 240 Theism, the Truth of . . . . ■ . . . .158 Theosophy, Siifistic . : 251 Time, the first, or never . . . . . .113 Trade, the highest . 264 Travellers, the two . . 106 Traitor, the surprised . . . . ' . . . 181 280 ALPHABETICAL INDEX. Transcendentalist, the . . 108 Transmutation, the highest .... • 259 Trial, the revealing 1'^^ Triumph, the Buddhist's Song of 122 Truth, Inversion of ■ • 252 Truth, the luminous . , 98 Truth, Prudence and • ■ 213 Truth, speaking the 100 Turtle-dove, sleepless Lover and ... . 229 Twin Angels of God 158 Universalization, Self 243 Vanity, envious 9" Vengeance-Oath, the, fulfilled 228. Venus, the Birth of 253 Victory, the Buddha's 159 Virtue, Vice neutralizing 158 Visit, the Night 228 Vision, the beatific 113 Vision, the conditional 106 Voluptuary, the, and the Hero . . . 112 Vow, the Reveller's 132 "Wealth, what is . . 178 Weapons, the four . . 264 Wine, the, of the Soul 215 Wine-Bearer, the fair 195 Wine-Orb, Scherif Eth-Thalik's 151 Wine-Seller, the 248 Wisdom, Haunt of . 251 Wisdom, Worth of 115 Wise Men, unnoticed were there no Fools . . 219 Wise Men, the, and the. rich Men . . . 252 Wishes, what Saadi ^ays on 174 Woman, Man and 254 Words, the Power of 103 World-Inn, the cheerful ... ... 132 Worshippers, the Mre ... ... 97 Worth, self-sufficing .... ... 95 Youth, Eegret over a squandered . . . , 102 Zuleika, Lines to 190,211 NEW WORKS AND NEW EDITIONS PUBLISHED BT WHITTEMORE, NILES, AND HALL, No. 114 "WASHINGTOX STREBT, BOSTOX. BENJAMIN FEANKLIN. p^^e Franklin's Works. Edited by Jaeed Spaeks, LL. D. A New Edi- tion. 10 vols. 8vo. 22 Plates. Cloth. $ 15.00 Do. do. Half calf, gilt. 25.00 Do. Life. By Jared Sparks, LL.D, A New Edition. 1 vol. 8vo. 3 Plates. Clotli. 1.60 Do. do. Half calf, gilt. 2.50 THOMAS DE QUINCEY. Klosterheim ; or the Masque. A Novel. By Thomas Db Quin- CEY, Author of *' Confessions of an English Opium-Eater." With a Biomraphical Preface, by Dr. Shelton Mackenzie. 1 vol. 16mo. Ctoth. .75 " It contains some of the finest tokens of De Quincey's genius." — Christian Examinerm "We have read it at least three times, and still find our mind as chained aa ever by the magic genius that glows on every page." — JSTew York Day-Book, " In brilliancy of style, vigor of conception, and skill in the treatment, Klos- ■ terheim ia worthy of Mr. De Q,uincey's rich and varied powers. Indeed, the tremendous force of his imagination is more apparent, we think, in this work, than in almost any of his other writings. The Biographical Notice by Dr. Mackenzie ia worthy of special commendation." — Boston Traveller, " We do not hesitate to affirm that it is much more readable than some of his pet productions, while it is quite as instructive. It would be known at once^ if ' It appeared anonymously, as the work of a man of learning and imaginative power," — Boston Morning Post, " One of the most remarkable productions of one of the most remarkable men of the age." — J, Q, SoxBj in Burlington Sentinel. JOHN STERLING. The Onyx Ring, a Tale. By John Sterling. With a Bio- graphical l*reface, by Charles Hale. 1 vol. 16mo. Cloth. ,75 " One of the richest and bes^t productions of a truly good and gifted man, a, man in whose praise it is sufficient to say that he gained in his short life the en- thusiastic reverence and love of Julius Hare and Thomas Carlyle. This *onyx' is a true jewel, refreshing to human eyes. The value of the story lies in its pure, deep sympathy with all that is best and most hopeful in human life. By virtue of his magic ring, the hero of the narrative enters into the consciousness of the various men about him, learns their power and their weakness, and U 2 WHITTEMOEE, NILES, AND HALL'S NEW PUBMOATIONS. glad at last to be himself, and to do and suffer and rejoice as God meant he should. The light of a sweet, genial, loving spirit streams out from the page, as the mystic brightness gleamed from the gem. Mr. Hale's opening sketch of the author's life will be very useful and acceptable to the general reader." — Christian Examiner. " In iiction Sterling was happy, but deeply philosophic, and the Onyx Ring is filled with gems of thought as brilliant and as enduring as any in our language. Eead it, lover of the beautiful, the sublime, the good, — read it, moralist ; it con- veys a thousand golden ideas, and having read it you will appreciate his charac- ter." — j^ntelligencer. " Those who are not acquainted with Sterling need not hesitate to buy thta beautiful creation of his brilliant mind." — F, D. Huntmgton, in MontlUy Magazine. EDMOND ABOUT. ToUa, a Tale of Modern Rome. By Edmond About, 1 vol. 16mo. Cloth. .75 '* With the glow and passion of Roman life in every page, dealing with a point of morals hard to describe without passing the proper boundaries of domestic romance, this story ia as pure in tone as the ' Vicar of Wakefield.' " — London ^theneBum, "In style, tone, and incident, it assimilates with the more artistic and pure school of romance ; a deep candor of feelinc, and a chaste simplicity rare in French writers, make ' Tolla * worthy of a place beside ' Picciola,' ' Monaldi,' * The Onyx Ring,' and other select works of narrative, grace, and beauty. No analysis of the story would convey an idea of its quiet charm, which can only be fully realized by a perusal of the whole." — Transcript. W. E. ALGEE. The Poetry of the East. By Bev. William Sousseville Algeb. 16mo. Cloth. 1.00 TEIFLETON PAPERS. By Trifle and the Editor. 16mo. Cloth. .V5 J. G. LOCKHAET. Ancient Spanish Ballads, Historical and Eomantio. Translated, ■with an Introduction and Notes, by J. G. Lockhart. With a Bi- ographical Notice. 1 vol. 16mo. Cloth. .63 EICHAED HILDEETH. The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive. 8 Engravings. 12mo. Cloth. 1.00 MES. COENELIUS. The Young Housekeeper's Friend: or, A Guide to Domestic Econo- my and Comfort. By Mrs. H. M. Coehelius. 12mo. Half cloth. .38 Same work, cloth. .50 Mrs. Eliza Farrar, the author of the " Young Ladies' Friend," in a notice of this book, saya : " A person wholly ignorant of household affairs may by a diligent perusal of this book, become an accomplished housekeeper and evert practical housewives will find this a valuable hand-book. I expect to profit by its counsels, and intend that those who cook for me in future shall take it for their manual." CHAELES SWAIN. Poems. By Chakles Swain. With an Bitroduotion to the American Edition. By the Author. 16mo. "WBITTEMOKE, NILES, AND HALL's NEW PUBLICATIONS. 3 JOTHAM SEWALL. Memoir of the Rev. Jotham Sewall, of Chesterville, Maine, ■with a Portrait. By his Son, Eev. Jotham Szwall. IZmo. Cloth. 1.00 EMERSON DAVIS, D.D., and MARK HOPKINS, D.D. The Half-Century: or, A History of Changes that have taken place, and Events that have transpired, between 1800 and 1850. By Emekson Davis, D. D. With an Introduction, by Makk H«p- KINS, D. D. 1.00 JOHN WARE, M.D. Hints to Young Men on the True Relation of the Sexes. By John Ware, M. D. Prepared at, the request of a Committee of Gentle- men. ISmo. Flexible cloth. , .25 SAMUEL LEECH. Thirty Years from Home. Being the Experience of Samuel Leech in the British and American Navies, the Merchant Service, &o. 4 Engravings. 18mo. Cloth. .88 L. C. MUNN. The American Orator : with an Appendix, containing the Decla- ration of Independence, with the fao-simile of the Autographs of the Signers ; the Constitution of the United States ; "Washington's Fare- well Address, and fac-similes of the Autographs of several hundred distinguished Individuals. By L. C. Muhn. Third Edition. 12mo. Cloth. 1.00 DAILY FOOD FOR CHRISTIANS. Being a Promise and another Scriptural Portion for every Day in the Year. Best edition, with a steel plate, cloth, paper title, .10 " " " " " " gilt back, .16 « « « " " " gilt edges, gilt sides, .20 " " Four steel plates, cloth, full gilt, and gilt edges, .31 " ** " " " morocco, .38 THE HARPSICHORD, OR UNION COLLECTION OF CHURCH MUSIC. By Leohaed Marshall, and Henky N. Stone. .75 THE HOSANNA. A New Collection of Church Music. By Leonard Marshall, Author of " The Harpsichord." -75 THE SACRED OFFERING. A Tableau of Remarkable Incidents in the Old and New Testa- ments, being a series of Original Articles by Distinguished American Writers. With Illustrations. Large 12mo. Morocco, extra. 1.60 A most beautiful gift-book for all seasons. 4 -^^HITTEMORE, NILES, AND HALl'S NEW PUBLICATIONS. JUVENILE. ELIZA LEE FOLLEN. TwUight Stories. A New Series of Stories for Children. By.Mrs. FoLtEN, Author of " Nnrsery Songs." With Illustrations from De- signs by Billings. 6 vols. Neatly Dound and put up in box. 1.60 Or separately, 25 cents each ; viz. True Stories about Dogs and Caljf. — Made-up. Stories. — The Pedler of Dust Sticks. — The Old Garret, Parts I., 11., and ID., Little Songs, illustrated with above fifty pictures. Square 16mo. ^8 JULIA KAVANAGH. Saint-Gildas, or the Three Paths. A Story for Boys. By Julia Kavanagh, Author of "NathaUe." With Illustrations. i6mo. Cloth, gilt: .63 " A very interesting juvenile tale by one of the most popular female writers of modem times."— iJVew York Commercial Advsrtiaer, AimA HARRIET DRURY. The Blue Ribbons. A Story of the Last Century. B7 Miss Dkuet, Author of "Friends and Fortune." With Illustrations. 16mo. Cloth, gilt. M *' This IS the history of a little French Loy, who raised flowers to sell, and whose grandmother had told him so many Fairy Stories, that he was always wishing and hoping that a Fairy would appear to him, and give him some charm that would relieve his sweet sister, and poor, old, infirm grandmother, of the sore load of poverty that rested upon them. One day he was walking in the royal woods, and thinking (aloud) of what he would do if a Fairy should appear, when suddenly the beautiful Queen Marie Antoinette appeared before him, with a little walking wand in her hand. He thought she was a Fairy, and spoke to her as such, and she gave him a bunch of blue ribbons from her dress as a talisman, and bade him wear them when he took hia flowers to market next day. Then follow a great many pretty Incidents, and some sad ones, all charmingly told, and the story ends at last very happily for everybody, except the poor, beautiful, unfortunate Quedn Marie ^^ntoinette.'' ^—LitU& Pilgrim.' LIZZIE AMORY. i Little Paul and other Stories. By Lizzie Amort. With Illus- trations. 16mo. Cloth, gilt. .38 " Containing seven highly interesting stories for chil)3ren, told in an unambi- tious style, and inculcating sound moral' precepts." THE SISTEES ABROAD, Or a Summer in Italy. By a Lady of Boston. Illustrated. 16mo. ANNE W. ABBOTT. The Evergreen Chaplet. A Collection of Tales for Children. By Ahne W. Abbott. With lUnstrations. 18mo. Cloth, ^It. .31 T. D. P. STONE. stories to Teach me to Think. A Series of Juvenile Tales. By T. D. P. Stome. With Illustrations. 18mo. Cloth, gilt. .31 THE LIVES OF CELEBRATED CHILDREN. Abounding in interesting Historical Events. 18mo. Cloth, gilt. .31