A bud in beauty’s garden fresh as morn: Round were these buds, like ruddy lips that called For kisses with a passionate desire; Such was the beauty that belonged to them, That all the world enamored gazed on them. X DESCRIPTION OF THE ROSE’S BEAUTY IN EVERY MEMBER Graceful indeed are all the Rose’s tints, Above, beneath, they move with equal charm, And all their life expresses beauty’s self; And each is dowered with equal loveliness. Her restless-streaming and dishevelled locks Were long life to the heart of those who loved. And she was beauty’s sum and monogram, By whom to earth descended human bliss; And many a heart within those meshes lay, And pined as mine did, from a thousand wounds. Her figure was like boughs from paradise, The lotus at the sight obeisance made; Her figure kills all other trees, and puts The cypress and the plane-tree out of mind. Never did cypress wave with such a grace; For soulful was that figure of the Rose. The constellations’ signet crystalline Shines out like Alexander’s looking-glass. Venus in Sagittarius is she, Where sun and moon together cross the sky. And so her countenance a tablet is On which the Lord has written--“A child of light,” And in her eyebrows, rising o’er her eyes, We see the double moon that comes in Mars. Joined like the double arches of a bridge Are those twin bows of beauty and delight. Without that portico of loveliness, The house of beauty would to ruin fall. And those two arches lead into the house, Where beauty’s self is fostered as a child. How skilfully the magic bow is strung, The double bow with but a single span! And every glance that from this bow is shot Flies to the mark and makes the red blood flow. That eye--enchantment’s self is resting there, And sorcery’s fountain springs beneath that brow. Whoever looks upon those lustrous eyes Must cry “Now God be with you, lady fair.” For like Narcissus flowers the eyes adorn The happy beauty garden of the face. Twin stars of flame are they, which archers shoot, Like arrows, from the strong and bended bow. Two Turks, who in the court of Shinar’s plain Fall drowsy, after drinking, to the floor. The glance that subjugates the heart of all Is like a dagger by the acid worn, Which keener grows with every wound it deals; For every arrowed glance the heart’s blood draws. The sidelong glances are as skirmishers-- A band of lancers rushing into fight. Each waving ringlet is a teazing bolt, That gives unrest, not comfort, to the soul. Her nose is like a shadow’s streak of cloud, In which the signature of beauty lives; It is a jasmine, budding and unblown, Set in the beauty garden of the face. A finger, which, by power of sorcery, Has cut the circle of the moon in twain.