And thus to Saadi said the Muse: 
’Eat thou the bread which men refuse;
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 plume 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.’

HOLIDAYS

From fall to spring, the russet acorn,
  Fruit beloved of maid and boy,
Lent itself beneath the forest,
  To be the children’s toy.

Pluck it now!  In vain,—­thou canst not;
  Its root has pierced yon shady mound;
Toy no longer—­it has duties;
  It is anchored in the ground.

Year by year the rose-lipped maiden,
  Playfellow of young and old,
Was frolic sunshine, dear to all men,
  More dear to one than mines of gold.

Whither went the lovely hoyden? 
  Disappeared in blessed wife;
Servant to a wooden cradle,
  Living in a baby’s life.

Still thou playest;—­short vacation
  Fate grants each to stand aside;
Now must thou be man and artist,—­
  ’T is the turning of the tide.

XENOPHANES

By fate, not option, frugal Nature gave
One scent to hyson and to wall-flower,
One sound to pine-groves and to waterfalls,
One aspect to the desert and the lake. 
It was her stern necessity:  all things
Are of one pattern made; bird, beast and flower,
Song, picture, form, space, thought and character
Deceive us, seeming to be many things,
And are but one.  Beheld far off, they part
As God and devil; bring them to the mind,
They dull its edge with their monotony. 
To know one element, explore another,
And in the second reappears the first. 
The specious panorama of a year
But multiplies the image of a day,—­
A belt of mirrors round a taper’s flame;
And universal Nature, through her vast
And crowded whole, an infinite paroquet,
Repeats one note.