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the rose." ." Persian poems do not cover a wide range of subjects and are somewhat artificial, but they show a great perfection in form and are euphonious to a degree. Love and wine are the themes commonly celebrated in Persian lyrics. There is a body of court poetry and of religious and didactic poetry as well.

Omar Khayyam. The wonderfully lyric verse of Persian poets has attracted Western readers for several generations, and many English translations have been made. Omar Khayyám (twelfth century) and Hafiz (fourteenth century) have found more English readers than any other Persian poets. The superb renderings by Edward Fitzgerald of the "Rubaiyat" of Omar Khayyám may be classed with the finest English translations of any foreign poetry. Omar was a poet-astronomer who lived in the city of Nishapur. Over twelve hundred quatrains (four-line stanzas) are credited to him. Omar Khayyam's subject matter consists of complaints against fate and the world's injustice, comments on the insincerity of the pious, love poems on separation and reunion, poems in praise of spring and flowers, satirical utterances deriding orthodox beliefs and praising wine and pleasure, and, finally, poems of devotion and contrition.1 Fitzgerald's selections cover about one hundred quatrains, fully half of which are faithful and beautiful paraphrases of the original, and the remainder more or less close transcriptions of the thought of the Persian poet. Some of the most striking of Fitzgerald's versions are the following:

VII

"Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter-and the Bird is on the Wing."

XVI

"The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon
Turns Ashes-or it prospers; and anon,
Like Snow upon the Desert's dusty Face,
Lighting a little hour or two-is gone."

1 Summarized from Winfield's analysis.

XXI

"Ah, my Belovéd, fill the Cup that clears
TO-DAY of past Regrets and future Fears:
To-morrow!-Why, To-morrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n thousand Years."

XXVII

"Myself when young did eagerly frequent Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument About it and about: but evermore

Came out by the same door where in I went.

XXVIII

"With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow, And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow; And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd'I came like Water, and like Wind I go.""

XLVI

"And fear not lest Existence closing your

Account, and mine, should know the like no more; The Eternal Sákí from that Bowl has pour'd Millions of Bubbles like us, and will pour.

XLVII

"When You and I behind the Veil are past,
Oh, but the long, long while the World shall last,
Which of our Coming and Departure heeds
As the Sea's self should heed a pebble-cast."

LXIV

"Strange, is it not? that of the myriads who Before us pass'd the door of Darkness through,

Not one returns to tell us of the Road,

Which to discover we must travel too."

LXVI

"I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that After-life to spell :

And by and by my Soul return'd to me,
And answer'd 'I Myself am Heav'n and Hell.””

LXVIII

"We are no other than a moving row
Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go
Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held
In Midnight by the Master of the Show;

LXIX

"But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays
Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days;
Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays."

C

"Yon rising Moon that looks for us again—
How oft hereafter will she wax and wane;
How oft hereafter rising look for us

Through this same Garden-and for one in vain!

CI

"And when like her, oh Sákí, you shall pass
Among the Guests Star-scatter'd on the Grass,

And in your joyous errand reach the spot

Where I made One-turn down an empty Glass!"

Hafiz, like Omar Khayyám, is remembered not alone for his work as a poet. He had a scientific mind. He lectured on theology and philosophy. Curious biographical data have been preservedof his travels, his interview with Timur the Great, his infidelity to the orthodox Mohammedan faith, and other items. He died close to the end of the fourteenth century.

The poems of Hafiz are concerned sometimes with individuals, but they deal chiefly with wine, love, youth and beauty, the spring, and the rose and the nightingale. It is quite possible that a mystic or philosophic meaning may be hidden in even the most straightforward and transparent of these poems. The delight that Hafiz showed in nature, the entire naturalness of his poems, his clear style and unique expression, have won for him a host of admirers. He excels especially in his odes entitled "ghazals," poems from five to sixteen couplets in length. The riming-scheme is elaborate; the signature of the poet is commonly worked into the last verse; and in the arrangement of the ghazals an alphabetical plan is followed, based on the initial word of the successive poems.

The principal poetical work of Hafiz is the "Divan," a collection of about seven hundred separate poems, mostly ghazals. Richard Le Gallienne, Justin Huntley McCarthy, Walter Leaf, H. Bicknell, and Miss G. L. Bell, among others, have made translations of the poems in the "Divan." Miss Bell's translations may be especially commended. Apart from Fitzgerald's "Rubaiyat" they are perhaps the finest English poetical renderings of any Persian poet. The following is a portion of Miss Bell's translation of the ode engraved on Hafiz's tombstone:

"Pour down, O Lord! from the clouds of Thy guiding grace
The rain of a mercy that quickeneth on my grave,

Before, like dust that the wind bears from place to place,

I arise and flee beyond the knowledge of man.

When to my grave thou turnest thy blessed feet,

Wine and the lute shalt thou bring in thy hand to me,

Thy voice shall ring through the folds of my winding-sheet,
And I will arise and dance to thy minstrelsy.

Though I be old, clasp me one night to thy breast,

And I, when the dawn shall come to awaken me,

With the flash of youth on my cheek from thy bosom will rise.

Rise up! let mine eyes delight in thy stately grace!

Thou art the goal to which all men's endeavor has pressed,

And thou the idol of Hafiz's worship; thy face

From the world and life shall bid him come forth and arise!"

ARABIC LITERATURE

The literature of Arabia is rich and varied, comprising poetry, anecdote, the typical oriental tale or romance, history, philosophy, and religious treatise. Our pictures of the Orient are inevitably colored by the luxurious, fantastic, and racy tales of Arabia and the Moslem world. We hark back to the great days of Bagdad, Cairo, and Cordova; visions of the crowded bazaars, the mosques, Arab sheiks, veiled women, and Haroun al-Rashid beset us. and we breathe an air of mystery and enchantment.

The classic period of Arabic poetry was just before and during the time of Mohammed (seventh century). A fixed

poetic form and content of a
high order of merit became
prevalent. The poets told of
the Arab life-the stretches
of desert, the oases, the camels
and antelopes, the joys of the
chase, the life of the tribe.
The poems were passed from
mouth to mouth and became
the common possession of the Arabs. The succeeding period wit-
nessed the development of city life and the characteristic Moslem
culture in such centers as Bagdad and Cairo. Arab Spain pro-
duced an enormous amount of poetry, as an anthology of twenty
thousand verses collected in the tenth century bears witness.
Hakim, the patron of literature, collected in Cordova a library said
to contain four hundred thousand volumes. As the Arab poetic

A PAGE (CHAPTER FIRST) OF A MANU-
SCRIPT COPY OF THE KORAN, THE BIBLE
OF THE MOSLEMS