"For you, an episode That lay beside your road, For me, my long abode, My will's whole centre. Lo now my task fulfilled, Yet not the hope that thrilled The stubborn realm I tilled For you to enter. "Ah, must all sacrifice Be weighed with balance nice! To ask the gods our price Makes all creeds shoddy. Then should I bargain now-- Troubling my worship--how You will reward my vow Of soul and body? "I have not striven in vain, Though all my poor domain Cries daily for your reign. I hold its treasure, A source of splendour, known Haply to me alone, A boundless love--my own. Had you but leisure "To pause beside this spring A moment, harkening How through my silence sing The dreams that here rest, I yet might make you see Some of the You in Me. This song not I but we Have written, dearest." Long ropes of stillness joined the caravan Closer together; no man spoke a word, Till Dreamer-of-the-Age: "Friend, go up higher At the Queen's right hand." Seyid Rida smiled: "I knew you would outrun us." The Wazir Heard neither fame nor blame, and so was blest Because he sought praise only of the Queen. XIV THE MORAL OF THE SCHOLAR At Ispahan the notables were met In conclave. Seyid Rida, scholar scamp-- As Dawlatshah records--perched in the porch: "Round the table sit the sages-- Different views and different ages-- Secretaries scribble pages, Taking down each 'er' and 'hem,' Taking down each word they utter Like the solemn measured sputter Of fat raindrops from a gutter. I speak last of them. "Outside in the summer weather Birds are talking all together, While a tiny pecked-out feather Flutters past the pane. Dare you own: The work before us Seems at moments like their chorus, Just a little more sonorous, Similar in strain? "Have a care! The bird that chatters Is the only bird that matters, Heedless of the hand that scatters Grains of sense or chaff Mid your Barmecides and Cleons. I have listened here for æons To these rooster-flights and pæans. No one heard me laugh. "Parrot, jackdaw, jay, and pigeon, Prose would be the whole religion Of the Nephelococcygian State to which you steer. If the earth remains a youngster With some waywardness amongst her Virtues, I should thank the songster Whom you cannot hear.