188 LITERARY PILGRIMAGES 



from savagery and America was not even a dream. 

 There Jamshid, founder of the then mighty city, 

 Rustam the hero who defended it all his life from 

 barbarian invaders, Sadi the poet in his rose 

 garden, Omar with his " jug of wine and thou " 

 watching the stars and writing his fond, cynical, 

 keen verses, and even Genghis Khan and Tamer- 

 lane, barbarian conquerors out of the mysterious 

 farther east, must have sat beneath its shade from 

 time to time as the centuries dreamed on and 

 dreamed their own dreams of conquest, of love or 

 of service, under the spell of its fond, pervading 

 perfume. Dreams these should be, of love, if you 

 will, of constancy, and of hope and yearning 

 toward high ideals, for all these breathe from 

 the true heart of the lilac to-day, nor has the pass- 

 ing of three centuries changed the subtle essences 

 of the flower or their meaning one whit. How 

 far these have gone to the changing of the hearts 

 of men in that time one may not say, but surely 

 the fragrance sighs through the Gulistan and the 

 Rubaiyat and the culture and refinement that 

 the Persia of those days has sent down the years 

 to us in their records was greater than that of any 



