Sparkling dew-drops stud the lily’s leaf like sabre broad and keen; Bent on merry gipsy party, crowd they all the flow’ry green!  List to me, if thou desirest, these beholding, joy to glean:  Gaily live! for soon will vanish, biding not, the days of spring!

Rose and tulip, like to maidens’ cheeks, all beauteous show, Whilst the dew-drops, like the jewels in their ears, resplendent glow; Do not think, thyself beguiling, things will aye continue so:  Gaily live! for soon will vanish, biding not, the days of spring!

* * * * *

Whilst each dawn the clouds are shedding jewels o’er the rosy land, And the breath of morning zephyr, fraught with Tatar musk, is bland; Whilst the world’s fair time is present, do not thou unheeding stand:  Gaily live! for soon will vanish, biding not, the days of spring!

With the fragrance of the garden, so imbued the musky air, Every dew-drop, ere it reaches earth, is turned to attar rare; O’er the parterre spread the incense-clouds a canopy right fair:  Gaily live! for soon will vanish, Biding not, the days of spring!

    [4] The nightingale.

    [5] In the original Turkish: 

Dinleh bulbul kissa sen kim gildi eiyami behar!  Kurdi her bir baghda hengamei hengami behar; Oldi sim afshan ana ezhari badami behar:  Ysh u nush it kim gicher kalmaz bu eiyami behar.

Here we have an example of the redif, which is common in Turkish and Persian poetry, and “consists of one or more words, always the same, added to the end of every rhyming line in a poem, which word or words, though counting in the scansion, are not regarded as the true rhyme, which must in every case be sought for immediately before them.  The lines—­

          There shone such truth about thee,
          I did not dare to doubt thee—­

furnish an example of this in English poetry.”  In the opening verse of Mesihi’s ode, as above transliterated in European characters, the redif is “behar,” or spring, and the word which precedes it is the true rhyme-ending.  Sir William Jones has made an elegant paraphrase of this charming ode, in which, however, he diverges considerably from the original, as will be seen from his rendering of the first stanza: 

          Hear how the nightingale, on every spray,
          Hails in wild notes the sweet return of May! 
          The gale, that o’er yon waving almond blows,
          The verdant bank with silver blossoms strows;
          The smiling season decks each flowery glade—­
          Be gay; too soon the flowers of spring will fade.

This Turkish poet’s maxim, it will be observed, was “enjoy the present day”—­the carpe diem of Horace, the genial old pagan.  On the same suggestive theme of Springtide a celebrated Turkish poetess, Fitnet Khanim (for the Ottoman Turks have poetesses of considerable genius as well as poets), has composed a pleasing ode, addressed to her lord, of which the following stanzas are also from Mr. Gibb’s collection: