Thanks are incumbent upon every mortal’s head; Contention and sour looks are surely no one’s bread. If to put on sour looks, of thankfulness sign be, Then vinegar the sweetest-spoken thing we’d see. If vinegar desire to hearts a way to find, It oxymel becomes, with honey sweet combined. True, verse is not best vehicle for sense abstract. It’s like a sling; one’s never certain how ’t will act.“ 160 Th’ ambassador his senses lost with this one cup Of wine spiritual. His mission he gave up. O’erwhelmed with wonder at the power of God, he fell. He came ambassador; now sovereign was, as well. A river overflooded constitutes a lake. Some grains, when sown in earth, a field of corn can make. When eaten, bread assimilated is by man, That bread inanimate takes life, and reason can. When wood or candle is made victim unto fire, Its substance dark becomes a source of light entire. 165 Black _stibium_, a stone, when placed in human eye, Expands the power of vision, objects can descry. Good luck to him who’s saved from his own fleshly self, And has become a parcel of some living elf. Alas for him, who, living, sits among the dead. He’s dead himself, his life from out of him has fled. If thou take refuge in the Qur’ān, God’s own book, With spirit of Muhammed thou’lt soon exchange look. The Qur’ān is the essence of all prophets right. They were the whales who swam in ocean of God’s might. 170 If thou canst read or not, the Qur’ān take to heart, The saints and prophets study; they were as thou art. Read thou it carefully; read, mark, digest its tales; Thy soul, like bird in cage, will long to break its rails. The bird shut up, imprisoned in a little cage, That seeks not to get out, is ignorant, not sage. The souls who’ve freed themselves from cages of the flesh, Are worthy fellow-travellers with prophets, fresh. Their voices they lift up, religion to impart: “The way of sure deliverance is here. Take heart! 175 Religion hath us saved from fleshly cages, sure. No other way is there, salvation to secure. You then upon yourselves will chastisements inflict, That you may be delivered from the world’s respect.” Respect of mortal man a heavy fetter is; Within religion’s path the gravest bond is this. Consider well this tale, ingenuous young friend; 179 ’Twill teach thee many lessons may thy morals mend. VII. The Merchant and the Parrot.