o show
How Passion tires, and how with Time begins
The Folding of the Carpet of Desire.
And what the turning of Salaman's Heart
Back to the Shah, and looking to the Throne
Of Pomp and Glory? What but the Return
Of the Lost Soul to its true Parentage,
And back from Carnal Error looking up
Repentant to its Intellectual Throne.
What is The Fire?--Ascetic Discipline,
That burns away the Animal Alloy,
Till all the Dross of Matter be consumed,
And the Essential Soul, its Raiment clean
Of Mortal Taint, be left. But forasmuch
As any Life-long Habit so consumed,
May well recur a Pang for what is lost,
Therefore The Sage set in Salaman's Eyes
A Soothing Fantom of the Past, but still
Told of a Better Venus, till his Soul
She fill'd, and blotted out his Mortal Love.
For what is Zuhrah?--That Divine Perfection,
Wherewith the Soul inspir'd and all array'd
In Intellectual Light is Royal blest,
And mounts The Throne and wears The Crown, and Reigns
Lord of the Empire of Humanity.

This is the Meaning of This Mystery
Which to know wholly ponder in thy Heart,
Till all its ancient Secret be enlarged.
Enough--The written Summary I close,
And set my Seal:

THE TRUTH GOD ONLY KNOWS.

PERSIAN
POETRY

AN ESSAY BY
RALPH WALDO EMERSON

To Baron Von Hammer-Purgstall, who died in Vienna in 1856, we owe our
best knowledge of the Persians. He has translated into German, besides
the "Divan" of Hafiz, specimens of two hundred poets, who wrote during a
period of five and a half centuries, from A.D. 1050 to 1600. The seven
masters of the Persian Parnassus--Firdousi, Enweri, Nisami,
Dschelaleddin, Saadi, Hafiz, and Dschami[D]--have ceased to be empty
names; and others, like Ferideddin Attar and Omar Chiam, promise to rise
in Western estimation. That for which mainly books exist is communicated
in these rich extracts. Many qualities go to make a good telescope,--as
the largeness of the field, facility of sweeping the meridian,
achromatic purity of lenses, and so forth,--but the one eminent value is
the space penetrating power; and there are many virtues in books,--but
the essential value is the adding of knowledge to our stock, by the
record of new facts, and, better, by the record of intuitions, which
distribute facts, and are the formulas which supersede all histories.

Oriental life and society, especially in