THE ROSE OF BAKAWALI.
PROEM.

EVERY praise is due to that Almighty Creator whose mercy has given grace and perfection to this garden of the earth. The flowers, like the loveliest brides, reflect the lustre of his beauty; what power, then, has the pen, a dry and withered reed as it is, to record his excellencies?

Each blushing rose-leaf still exhales
Those heavenly paradisal gales,
Creator, which thy power proclaim,
And make the bulbul praise thy name.
The unexpanded buds confess
Thy glory, and thy power express;
And all the loveliness of earth
From thee alone has taken birth.
The light of Layla's* beauty glows
Apparent in the blushing rose;
And in Narcissus still we find
Sad Majnún's hair tossed by the wind.*
O if his mercy rain on me,
'T will wash out my impurity,
And crown my hopes with verdancy;
But if his wrath its head should rear,
'Neath Ahmed's* shade we must repair.

Thousands of blessings be upon that glorified Pro­phet, for whom the heavens and the earth were created,* and the footmarks of whose Burák* are impressed on the foreheads of the sun and moon. From the whole collected works of his power, the world is but a single volume, and life a single chapter. When he found the earth required his presence, he left heaven, and, clothed in human flesh, descended here below. Let us turn now to the praise of the king of heroes, namely, Alí.*

When the sun had irradiated the face of the earth I determined to dive into the river of contemplation, with a view of gaining some pearls of ideas therefrom. Many came to hand, yet I was wondering how to use them, when a voice reached my ear, saying: “O thou, immersed in thought, these gems befit only one, and he is Alí: may peace be on him! Open thy mouth in his eulogy, because he is an emperor, the lustre of whose countenance has cast a shade of pale­ness on the moon, and has redoubled the radiance of the sun. If he would give loose to the reins of his charger in the seventh heaven, it would raise disturb­ance among the stars.”

O King of kings, my request from thy mercy is, that thou wouldst prove a shelter to me on the day of judgment, and admit me into the ranks of thy white-faced servants. What shall I add, when it is pre­sumption on my part to address thee long!