At length slept on the couch his bride possess'd, 2979 Who sought to know where Majnún might be found: With ceaseless tears perform'd the funeral rite, One promise bound their faithful hearts-one bed Ne'er to be join'd but in the silent tomb! THE minstrel's legend-chronicle Which on their woes delights to dwell, 2990 3000 Their matchless purity and faith, And how their dust was mix'd in death, Saw, in a dream, the beauteous bride, Circles of glory round them gleaming, With golden fruit and blooming flowers; The ring-dove's murmuring, and the swell He saw within a rosy glade, Beneath a palm's extensive shade, A throne, amazing to behold, Studded with glittering gems and gold; Celestial carpets near it spread Close where a lucid streamlet stray'd; Upon that throne, in blissful state, The long-divided lovers sate, Resplendent with seraphic light :— They held a cap, with diamonds bright; 3010 3020 Their lips, by turns, with nectar wet, In pure ambrosial kisses met; Sometimes to each their thoughts revealing, Each clasping each with tenderest feeling. 3030 -The dreamer who this vision saw Demanded, with becoming awe, What sacred names the happy pair In Irem-bowers were wont to bear. A voice replied:-" That sparkling moon Deprived in your frail world of bliss, They reap their great reward in this!" 3040 Zyd, wakening from his wonderous dream, Now dwelt upon the mystic theme, And told to all how faithful love Receives its recompense above. O ye, who thoughtlessly repose 3050 The world to come makes bliss secure, The world to come, eternal, pure. What other solace for the human soul, But everlasting rest-virtue's unvarying goal! SAKI! Nazámi's strain is sung; The Persian poet's pearls are strung; Thou wouldst not ask the reveller why? Fill to the love that changes never! Fill to the love that lives for ever! At last with bliss seraphic glows. 3060 Saki-cup-bearer. The cup-bearer and his ruby wine stand in about the same relation in Persia's poetry, as the muse and "Castalia's stream” in the Greek. The cup-bearer is the great inspirer. Indeed, the Muses were the tutelar goddesses of festivals and banquets. Line 42. That wine, which to the fever'd lip, The Nepenthe of Homer. Line 48. And lifts the mind, now grown elate, The story of Jamshid is finely told in the Shahnameh. He was one of the early rulers of Persia, a prince surrounded with peculiar splendour and magnificence: he was, however, suddenly precipitated from his throne, and put to a terrible death; his body being fastened between two planks, and divided with a saw. See the Shahnameh, abridged, in prose and verse, by the author of the present work. |