"On earth's wide thoroughfares below
Two only men contented go:
Who knows what's right and what's forbid,
And he from whom is knowledge hid."

Here is a poem on a melon, by Adsched of Meru:--

"Colour, taste, and smell, smaragdus, sugar and musk,--
Amber for the tongue, for the eye a picture rare,--
If you cut the fruit in slices, every slice a crescent fair,--
If you leave it whole, the full harvest moon is there."

Hafiz is the prince of Persian poets, and in his extraordinary gifts
adds to some of the attributes of Pindar, Anacreon, Horace, and Burns
the insight of a mystic, that sometimes affords a deeper glance at
Nature than belongs to either of these bards. He accosts all topics with
an easy audacity. "He only," he says, "is fit for company, who knows how
to prize earthly happiness at the value of a nightcap. Our father Adam
sold Paradise for two kernels of wheat; then blame me not if I hold it
dear at one grapestone." He says to the Shah, "Thou who rulest after
words and thoughts which no ear has heard and no mind has thought,
abide firm until thy young destiny tears off his blue coat from the old
graybeard of the sky." He says:--

"I batter the wheel of heaven
When it rolls not rightly by;
I am not one of the snivellers,
Who fall thereon and die."

The rapidity of his turns is always surprising us:--

"See how the roses burn!
Bring wine to quench the fire!
Alas! the flames come up with us,--
We perish with desire."

After the manner of his nation, he abounds in pregnant sentences which
might be engraved on a sword-blade and almost on a ring. "In honour dies
he to whom the great seems ever wonderful." "Here is the sum, that, when
one door opens, another shuts." "On every side is an ambush laid by the
robber-troops of circumstance; hence it is that the horseman of life
urges on his courser at headlong speed." "The earth is a host who
murders his guests." "Good is what goes on the road of Nature. On the
straight way the traveller never misses."

"Alas! till now I had not known
My guide and Fortune's guide are one."

"The understanding's copper coin
Counts not with the gold of love."

"'Tis writ on Paradise's gate,
'Woe to the dupe that yields to Fate!'"

"The world is a bride superbly dressed;
Who weds her for dowry must pay his soul."

"Loose the knots of the heart; never think on thy