ities were, however, induced to relent in their plan of
excommunication at the dictates of a passage from the poet's writings,
which was come upon by opening the book at random. The passage ran as
follows: "Turn not thy feet from the bier of Hafiz, for though immersed
in sin, he will be admitted into Paradise." And so he rests in the
cemetery at Shiraz, where the nightingales are singing and the roses
bloom the year through, and the doves gather with low murmurs amid the
white stones of the sacred enclosure. The poets of nature, the mystical
pantheist, the joyous troubadour of life, Hafiz, in the naturalness and
spontaneity of his poetry, and in the winning sweetness of his imagery,
occupies a unique place in the literature of the world, and has no rival
in his special domain.

FRAGMENT BY HAFIZ

_In Praise of His Verses_.

The beauty of these verses baffles praise:
What guide is needed to the solar blaze?
Extol that artist by whose pencil's aid
The virgin, Thought, so richly is arrayed.
For her no substitute can reason show,
Nor any like her human judgment know.
This verse, a miracle, or magic white--
Brought down some voice from Heaven, or Gabriel bright?
By me as by none else are secrets sung,
No pearls of poesy like mine are strung.

THE DIVAN

I

"Ala ya ayyuha's-Saki!"--pass round and offer thou the bowl,
For love, which seemed at first so easy, has now brought trouble to my
soul.

With yearning for the pod's aroma, which by the East that lock shall
spread
From that crisp curl of musky odor, how plenteously our hearts have
bled!

Stain with the tinge of wine thy prayer-mat, if thus the aged Magian
bid,
For from the traveller from the Pathway[1] no stage nor usage can be
hid.

Shall my beloved one's house delight me, when issues ever and anon
From the relentless bell the mandate: "'Tis time to bind thy litters
on"?

The waves are wild, the whirlpool dreadful, the shadow of the night
steals o'er,
How can my fate excite compassion in the light-burdened of the shore?

Each action of my froward spirit has won me an opprobrious name;
Can any one conceal the secret which the assembled crowds proclaim?

If Joy be thy desire, O Hafiz,
From Him far distant never dwell.
"As soon as thou hast found thy Loved one,
Bid to the world a last farewell."

II

Thou whose feat