With a drum of gold the bright firmament beat At morn the signal for night’s retreat. The stars with the night at the coming of day Broke up their assembly and passed away. From that drum, gold-scattering, light was shed, Like a peacock’s glorious plumes outspread. In princely garb the Vizier arrayed, Placed in her litter the moon-bright maid. In the van, in the rear, on every side, He ordered his soldiers about the bride, And golden umbrellas a soft shade threw O’er the heads of Zulaikhā’s retinue. The singer’s voices rang loud and high, As the camels moved at the driver’s cry, And the heaven above and below the ground Echoed afar with the mingled sound. Glad were the maids of Zulaikhā’s train That their lady was free from sorrow and pain, And the prince and people rejoiced that she The idol and queen of his home should be. THE SIXTH PERIOD. The sixth period, beginning near the close of the fifteenth century, and extending to about the commencement of the seventeenth, marks a gradual decline in poetry, although history and other literature still attract much attention. The so-called poets of this age are unworthy of notice, but a few good Persian historians made their appearance. India now began to vie with Persia in the production of great historical works, under the government of the Mongol emperors from Baber downwards. The pantheistic doctrines of the Sufis were doubtless brought into Persia from India, and both the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahā-bhārata were translated into Persian by the order of Akbar. This monarch was the most enlightened sovereign that ever reigned on the throne of India. He was the patron, not only of learning and art, but he also richly rewarded the calligraphers and other artists that he employed to copy and illustrate Persian manuscripts. This illustrious patron of Persian literature was a descendant of Timūr, and therefore belonged to the race of Mongol emperors, usually styled the “Great Moguls.” The history of his own times was provided for by the appointment of forty-four historians, ten of whom were on duty each day to record every event as it occurred. By Akbar’s order the “History of a Thousand Years” was composed, several authors being engaged upon it, each one having a certain number of years assigned to him. A society for literary composition had thus been organized in India about two hundred years before that of Guthrie and Grey had been established in England. THE SEVENTH PERIOD.