Thou art of my song the begetter;
    Its drapery putteth my wand on;
  Thou yieldest the purest of marble,
    And I lay the sculpturing hand on.

  Thou givest the spirit, the essence: 
    Me for utt’rance alone mak’st demand on—­
  Oft my power’s deficient, and madly
    Thy crude thoughts I haste to expand on.

Sundry songs extolling the beneficence of wine and earthly pleasure arose at this period.  Of these we find none more attractive than that which owed its origin to a conversation held in the divan of wisdom concerning certain Russians and Georgians who drank wine more freely than the camels drank water, yet had gained no inspiration therefrom: 

  From wine’s fiery fascination
    From the goblet’s mystic pleasure,
  Poison foams, and sweet refreshment,
  Beauty flows, and degradation,
    As the drinker’s worth may measure,
  According to his brain’s assessment.

  In debasement deeply sunken
    Lies the fool, through wine’s might captur’d: 
  When he drinks becomes he drunken;
    When we drink we are enraptured. 
    Sparkling gleams of wit, worth dreaming,
    Flash from tongues like angel’s seeming,
    And with ardor we are teeming,
  And alone with beauty drunken.

  Well resembles wine the shower
    Which to mire fresh mire amasses,
  But to fair fields brings a dower
    Rich in blessing as it passes.

One evening Bodenstedt discovered his worthy teacher singing before a house on whose roof sat a graceful maiden, and from the man’s whole manner then and thereafter concluded that in the long-faithful heart had been at last replaced the image of Zuleikha.  And so it proved.  On the very evening when he was returning home with softened heart after the recital of the joys and sorrows of his first love, Mirza-Schaffy’s attention had been arrested by a lovely maiden who, as he pushed back his cap—­solely, of course, to cool his heated brow—­gave incontestable evidences of being smitten with him.  When he went to his couch that night sleep refused to visit his eyelids, and as he restlessly tossed to and fro, the image of Zuleikha haunting him with reproachful mien, his thoughts turned ever to the peerless maiden who menaced further fidelity to the old love.  Ere morning dawned he had resolved to break the spell, and for several days avoided the locality of the fair enticer.  But the attraction became finally too strong to resist.  He went, he saw the maiden, and she bestowed on him a glance which rendered him her slave for life;

  A wond’rous glance hath met my eyes: 
    The magic of this moment rare
  Worketh for aye a fresh surprise,
    A miracle beyond compare.

  A question, therefore, ask I thee—­
    Pay heed, sweet life whom I adore—­
  Was that fond glance bestowed on me? 
    A token give, then, I implore.