SAADI

A

ND thus to Saadi said the Muse:
Eat thou the bread which men re-
fuse;

Flee from the goods which from thee flee;
Seek nothing,- Fortune seeketh thee.
Nor mount, nor dive; all good things keep
The midway of the eternal deep.
Wish not to fill the isles with eyes
To fetch thee birds of paradise;
On thine orchard's edge belong
All the brags of plumes and song;
Wise Ali's sunbright sayings pass
For proverbs in the market-place;
Through mountains bored by regal art
Toil whistles as he drives his cart.
Nor scour the seas, nor sift mankind,
A poet or a friend to find;

Behold, he watches at the door,
Behold his shadow on the floor.

Open innumerable doors

The heaven where unveiled Allah pours
The flood of truth, the flood of good,
The Seraph's and the Cherub's food;
Those doors are men; the Pariah hind
Admits thee to the perfect Mind.
Seek not beyond thy cottage wall
Redeemers that can yield thee all.
While thou sittest at thy door,
On the desert's yellow floor,
Listening to the gray-haired crones,
Foolish gossips, ancient drones,
Saadi, see! they rise in stature
To the height of mighty Nature,

And the secret stands revealed
Fraudulent Time in vain concealed,-
That blessed gods in servile masks
Plied for thee thy household tasks."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

WILT THOU NOT OPE THY HEART

WILT

FROM Threnody

ILT thou not ope thy heart to know What rainbows teach and sunsets show?

Verdict which accumulates

From lengthening scroll of human fates, Voice of earth to earth returned,

Prayers of saints that inly burned,

Saying, what is excellent,

As God lives, is permanent;

Hearts are dust, hearts' loves remain,
Heart's love will meet thee again.
Revere the Maker; fetch thine eye
Up to His style, and manners of the sky.
Not of adamant and gold

Built He heaven stark and cold,
No, but a nest of bending reeds,
Flowering grass and scented weeds,
Or like a traveller's fleeing tent,
Or bow above the tempest bent;
Built of tears and sacred flames,
And virtue reaching to its aims;
Built of furtherance and pursuing,
Not of spent deeds, but of doing.
Silent rushes the swift Lord
Through ruined systems still restored,
Broad-sowing, bleak and void to bless,
Plants with worlds the wilderness,

Waters with tears of ancient sorrow.
Apples of Eden ripe to-morrow;
House and tenant go to ground,

Lost in God, in Godhead found.

T

Ralph Waldo Emerson

THREE YEARS SHE GREW

HREE years she grew in sun and shower,
Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower

On earth was never sown;

This Child I to myself will take;

She shall be mine, and I will make
A Lady of my own.

"Myself will to my darling be

Both law and impulse: and with me

The Girl, in rock and plain,

In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
Shall feel an overseeing power

To kindle or restrain.

She shall be sportive as the fawn

That wild with glee across the lawn,
Or up the mountain springs;

And hers shall be the breathing balm,

And hers the silence and the calm

Of mute insensate things.

The floating clouds their state shall lend

To her; for her the willow bend;

Nor shall she fail to see

Even in the motions of the Storm

Grace that shall mould the Maiden's form
By silent sympathy.

"The stars of midnight shall be dear To her; and she shall lean her ear

In many a secret place

Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of murmuring sound
Shall pass into her face.

"And vital feelings of delight

Shall rear her form to stately height,

Her virgin bosom swell;

Such thoughts to Lucy I will give

While she and I together live

Here in this happy dell."

How soon my Lucy's race was run!

She died, and left to me

This heath, this calm and quiet scene;
The memory of what has been,

And nevermore will be.

William Wordsworth

GUY

ORTAL mixed of middle clay,

M Attempered to the night and day,

Interchangeable with things,

Needs no amulets nor rings.

Guy possessed the talisman

That all things from him began;

And as, of old, Polycrates

Chained the sunshine and the breeze,
So did Guy betimes discover
Fortune was his guard and lover;
In strange junctures, felt with awe
His own symmetry with law;

That no mixture could withstand
The virtue of his lucky hand.
He gold or jewel could not lose,
Nor not receive his ample dues.
In the street, if he turned round,
His eye the eye 'twas seeking found.
It seemed his Genius discreet
Worked on the Maker's own receipt,
And made each tide and element
Stewards of stipend and of rent;
So that the common waters fell
As costly wine into his well.
He had so sped his wise affairs
That he caught Nature in his snares:
Early or late, the falling rain
Arrived in time to swell his grain;
Stream could not so perversely wind,
But corn of Guy's was there to grind;
The siroc found it on its way
To speed his sails, to dry his hay;
And the world's sun seemed to rise
To drudge all day for Guy the wise.
In his rich nurseries, timely skill
Strong crab with nobler blood did fill;
The zephyr in his garden rolled
From plum-trees vegetable gold;
And all the hours of the year

With their own harvest honored were.
There was no frost but welcome came,
Nor freshet, nor midsummer flame;
Belonged to wind and world the toil
And venture, and to Guy the oil.

Ralph Waldo Emerson