BOOK OF THE CUP-BEARER.1

YES

"ES, in the wine-shop have I too been seated,
To me as to the others was it meted;
They gossipped, cried, were busy with to-day,
Just as the weather brought it, sad or gay;
But I in cheer innermost sat alway,

For thinking of my dearest-how she loved?
For want of knowing that my pulse is checked!

I love her so as ever a heart was moved

To give its plight and hang on One abject. Where was the parchment, where the stylus, ho, Which all recorded? — yet 'twas so! yes, so!

I sit alone,

It suits me well, I own;
My wine I drink

Alone, and think;

No one setting bounds to me,
So I have my thinking free.

Muley, the scamp, was so well trained,

That finer he wrote the more he drained.

Is

WHICH IS OLDER? 2

the Koran from eternity?

Thereon I question not.

Whether the Koran created be?

That know I not.

That it the Book of books may be,
On the Moslem's faith I wot,
But that wine is from eternity,

I doubt it not;

Or that ere angels it began to be,
A fable perchance is not;

But the drinker, however the case may be,
Sees Allah's face upon the spot.

To drinking must we all incline!
Youth is drunkenness without wine;
Wondrous merit 'tis of drinking
When Age again with youth is clinking.
Days for sorrow are care-takers,

But the grapes are sorrow-breakers.

'Tis beyond the reach of doubt!
Wine is rigidly shut out.
If for drinking still you pine,
Only drink the best of wine;

Else twice-heretic and quicker
Damned because of rasping liquor.

On what kind of wine

Did Alexander drunken get?
Latest spark of life I bet,
It was not so good as mine.

Wine! thou canst not be allowed it,
Till the doctor so has said:

Only a little spoils the stomach,
And too much will rot the head.

Know ye what name is given to Her? Know ye what wine I prefer?

One who too sober is

Finds the Wrong pleasant;
To one who well has drunk

The Right is present;
Neither creed safe is,

Runs to excesses;

Teach me, O Hafis,

How prudence redresses.

For my opinions

Soberly move;

One who can drink not

Ought not to love;
Drinkers no better

Than this can divine;

Who is not love's debtor,

Must owe nought to wine.

SULEIKA.

Wherefore art often rude and pale?

HATEM.

Thou know'st that the body is a jail;
The soul has been enticed within,
Where elbow-room is hard to win.
Does she for rescue take some pains,
The jail itself is put in chains:
Thus doubly baffled in her range,
It haps her mien is often strange.

If the body a prison is,

Why only the prison so thirsty is?
The soul within would be at ease,
And tarry while the senses please;
But now a flask shall briskly down,
Another brisk the first to drown.
The soul no longer will comply,
The beaten doors to pieces fly.