Like to the sun was Núshírwán, the king—
The world's hope and its fear. Just as above
Sol speedeth on its pathway carrying
A sword in this hand and in that hand love,
Is all relentless in its hour of rage,
But in its day of ruth all clemency,
So was this Sháh of royal lineage,
Who had adorned the world with equity.
Know this—in my regard the monarch's state
And subject's, if they holy be and pure,
Requireth of necessity a mate,
Dress, provand, and a privacy secure;
While if the wife be pious and discreet
A heaped-up treasure will she prove, and all
The more if locks musk-scented to her feet
Descend, and she be more than common tall,
Wise, learned, well counselled, chaste, and can express
Herself in fair discourse with gentleness.
The noble Sháh possessed a wife like this,
In height a cypress and in looks a moon,
This Moon-face was a Christian, and her beauty
Engrossed the tongues of all. She bare a babe
Sun-faced, out-shining Venus in the sky.
The noble mother called the child Núshzád,
And no fierce blast assailed that lovely boy.

He grew up as he were a straight-stemmed cypress—
A youth of parts, the glory of the realm.
He knew of Hell, the path to Paradise,
Of Christ, of Esdras, and Zarduhsht, but he,
Believing not the Zandavasta, bathed
His visage in the fount of Christ, preferring
His mother's to his father's Faith: the age
Was lost in wonderment at him. The king
Was grievously concerned about his son,
Because that Rose bare only fruit of thorns.
They shut the portal of Núshzád's fair palace,
And there imprisoned him. His prison-house
Was at Gund-i-Shápúr*

far from his home
And father. Many criminals and captives
Were with him in that city and in ward.
Now when the Sháh was on his way from Rúm
The turmoil and the journey tried him sorely;
So weak was he that he could hold no court.
One bare the tidings to Núshzád and told him:—
“The Glory of the empire is bedimmed;
The watchful world-lord Núshírwán is dead,
Bequeathing to another earth and time.”
His father's death rejoiced Núshzád. Oh! may
No pleasure and enjoyment e'er be his!
He that doth joy when just kings pass away
Must have a gloomy temper. As to this
A famous ancient said: “If thou art glad
At my decease see that thou never die.”
From death thou know'st no succour can be had,
The past is one here with futurity;
But never death will wreck the soul of one
Whose toil hath favour in the sight of God.
Call we a reprobate and fool that son
Who in his father's footsteps hath not trod.
Wet be the seed of colocynth or dry
It will not savour musk, then where the need
That it should change from what should spring
thereby
By nature if the gardener sow its seed?
When any plant is predisposed to earth,
It parteth with the sunshine and pure air,
Therefrom no foliage or fruit hath birth,
It liveth for the earth and dieth there.