The Two Officers of the King.

Whoever is born of his mother under a happy star,
Its brightness cleareth away even the darkness from the night;
He goeth to a field of thorns, it becometh a bed of roses,
And he giveth perfume to the roses like the musk of Tartary;
He passeth like a cloud over the thirsty fallows,
And his approach changeth them into a smiling paradise;
Like the wind, when it bloweth over the fresh garden,
His face kindleth up the lamp of every rose-bud;
He entereth the prison, it becometh pleasant and joyous,
And he free’th the prisoner from his burthen of sorrow.

These lines introduce the section of the Poem in which are described the benevolent ministrations of Joseph amongst the prisoners, in soothing their griefs, healing their diseases, and interpreting their dreams. Here he meets with the two disgraced ser­vants of Pharaoh, the Butler and the Baker, whose story, following the narrative in the Koran, is almost identical with that in the Bible, from which it is evidently copied. He interprets their dreams, telling the one that he will be hanged, and beseeching the other, when he is restored to his office of cup-bearer, as he will be, to mention his hard case to the King, and to obtain his deliverance; a request which, when restored, he quite forgets.