Said Saadi, "When I stood before Hassan the camel-driver's door, I scorned the fame of Timour brave; Timour, to Hassan, was a slave. In every glance of Hassan's eye I read great years of victory, And I, who cower mean and small In the frequent interval When wisdom not with me resides, Worship Toil's wisdom that abides. I shunned his eyes, that faithful man's, I shunned the toiling Hassan's glance." IV The civil world will much forgive To bards who from its maxims live, But if, grown bold, the poet dare Bend his practice to his prayer And following his mighty heart Shame the times and live apart,-- _Vae solis!_ I found this, That of goods I could not miss If I fell within the line, Once a member, all was mine, Houses, banquets, gardens, fountains, Fortune's delectable mountains; But if I would walk alone, Was neither cloak nor crumb my own. And thus the high Muse treated me, Directly never greeted me, But when she spread her dearest spells, Feigned to speak to some one else. I was free to overhear, Or I might at will forbear; Yet mark me well, that idle word Thus at random overheard Was the symphony of spheres, And proverb of a thousand years, The light wherewith all planets shone, The livery all events put on, It fell in rain, it grew in grain, It put on flesh in friendly form, Frowned in my foe and growled in storm, It spoke in Tullius Cicero, In Milton and in Angelo: I travelled and found it at Rome; Eastward it filled all Heathendom And it lay on my hearth when I came home. V Mask thy wisdom with delight, Toy with the bow, yet hit the white, As Jelaleddin old and gray; He seemed to bask, to dream and play Without remoter hope or fear Than still to entertain his ear And pass the burning summer-time In the palm-grove with a rhyme; Heedless that each cunning word Tribes and ages overheard: Those idle catches told the laws Holding Nature to her cause. God only knew how Saadi dined; Roses he ate, and drank the wind; He freelier breathed beside the pine, In cities he was low and mean; The mountain waters washed him clean And by the sea-waves he was strong; He heard their medicinal song, Asked no physician but the wave, No palace but his sea-beat cave. Saadi held the Muse in awe, She was his mistress and his law; A twelvemonth he could silence hold, Nor ran to speak till she him told; He felt the flame, the fanning wings, Nor offered words till they were things, Glad when the solid mountain swims In music and uplifting hymns. Charmed from fagot and from steel, Harvests grew upon his tongue, Past and future must reveal All their heart when Saadi sung; Sun and moon must fall amain Like sower's seeds into his brain, There quickened to be born again.