202 



»/ Bengal. [N.S., XII, 



23. 



This life of ours passes like an April cloud ; 

 The tears of these eyes are like unto a mountain-torrent. 

 Live in such wise, good Sir, that after thy death 

 Thy friends may bitterly regret thy loss. 



Compare the lines quoted by Elizabeth Barrett 

 in a letter to Robert Browning (Browning's Let- 

 ters, Vol. I, page 372). 



Like to the cloud upon the hill 

 We are a moment seen. 



As Thomas a Kempis says : « ' The end of all is 

 death, and man's life passes away suddenly like a 

 shadow." 



Line 4.— Abu Sa'id once said : " Thou earnest 

 into the world weeping, and men laughed at 

 thee. Strive to die laughing, that men may 

 ever weep for thee." 1 



24. 



The men of God belong to a different world from ours, 

 Those birds of the air come from a different nest. 

 O look not on them with these eyes of thine. 



For they are free of the two worlds and dwell in a place other 

 than ours. 



These men of God are the dervishes, the " men 

 of alchemy " as he calls them in another quatrain, 

 who "turn the copper of existence into gold." 

 The OvJ.shan-i.Iidz describes them in language re- 

 miniscent of this quatrain, as " birds of the soul " 

 (line 842). 



25. 



O wind, I adjure thee by the sacred earth of the Prophet; 



And thee, O rain, by 'AH the chosen. 



The people are fallen to weeping— Stay, stay 



O sea, I conjure thee by the martyr of Kerbela. 



26. 



When 



neighbours could not sleep because of my cries. 

 Now when I lament less, my pain has increased; 



When a thino- iq urlirJi** ~~ « * xi.. , .. . .* • 



1 Asrdr-utrtauhid, page 317. 



