“Not far from Ghúr once stood a city tall
Whose denizens were sightless one and all.
A certain Sultan once, when passing nigh,
Had pitched his camp upon the plain hard by,
Wherein, to prove his splendour, rank and state,
Was kept an elephant most huge and great.
Then in the townsmen's minds arose desire
To know the nature of this creature dire.
Blind delegates by blind electorate
Were therefore chosen to investigate
The beast, and each, by feeling trunk or limb,
Strove to acquire an image clear of him.
Thus each conceived a visionary whole,
And to the phantom clung with heart and soul.

When to the city they were come again,
The eager townsmen flocked to them amain.

Each one of them—wrong and misguided all—
Was eager his impressions to recall.
Asked to describe the creature's size and shape,
They spoke, while round about them, all agape,
Stamping impatiently, their comrades swarm
To hear about the monster's shape and form.

Now, for his knowledge each inquiring wight
Must trust to touch, being devoid of sight,
So he who'd only felt the creature's ear,
On being asked, ‘How doth its heart appear?’
‘Mighty and terrible,’ at once replied,
‘Like to a carpet, hard and flat and wide!’

Then he who on its trunk had laid his hand
Broke in: 'Nay: nay! I better understand!
'Tis like a water-pipe, I tell you true,
Hollow, yet deadly and destructive too”;
While he who'd had but leisure to explore
The sturdy limbs which the great beast upbore,
Exclaimed, ‘No, no! To all men be it known
'Tis like a column tapered to a cone!’

Each had but known one part, and no man all;
Hence into deadly error each did fall.
No way to know the All man's heart can find:
Can knowledge e'er accompany the blind?
Fancies and phantoms vain as these, alack!
What else can you expect from fool in sack?
Naught of Almighty God can creatures learn,
Nor e'en the wise such mysteries discern.”

The Dìwàn, in my judgment, contains poetry of a far higher order than the Ḥadìqa; so much higher that one might almost be tempted to doubt whether the same author composed both, were it not for the unquestionable fact that Persian poets seldom excel in all forms of verse, so that, to take one instance only, the qaṣìdas of Anwarí excel those of Ḥáfidh by as much as the ghazals of Ḥáfidh excel those of Anwarí. The follow­ing specimens from the Díwán of Saná'í must suffice, though his work in this field well deserves a closer and more extended examination:—

“Boast not * dervish-hood unless the store of storelessness * be
thine:
Neither rogue-like deck thy visage, nor like craven-heart
repine.
Either woman-like adopt the toilet-tricks of paint and scent,
Or like men approach the field, and cast the ball across the
line. *
All thou see'st beyond thy lusts is Heaven; clasp it to thy soul:
All thou findest short of God's an idol; break it, crush it fine!
Dance when like the headsman's carpet heart and soul lie
'neath thy feet:
Clap thy hands when earth and heaven in thy grasp thou dost
confine!
From the bowers of meditation raise thy head, that thou may'st
see
Those who still, though slain, are living, * rank on rank and line
on line.
There are those who, like Ḥusayn, have fallen by the tyrant's
sword;
Here are these who, like Ḥasan, by poison met their fate
malign.
Wondrous is the zeal of Faith, wherein, like candle, waxing
faint,
By removal of thy head thy radiance doth brighter shine. *
For the Jew in this arena fearless casts himself amain,
And the Brahmin in this temple burns his idol at the shrine.