A Fragment of a Turkish Tale

None lives for ever, brother, and
nothing lasts for long. Keep that in
mind and rejoice.
Our life is not the one old burden,
our path is not the one long
journey.
One sole poet has not to sing one
aged song.
The flower fades and dies; but he
who wears the flower has not to
mourn for it for ever.
Brother, keep that in mind and
rejoice.
There must come a full pause to
weave perfection into music.
Life droops toward its sunset to be
drowned in the golden shadows.

O woman, you are not merely the
handiwork of God, but also of men;
these are ever endowing you with
beauty from their hearts.
Poets are weaving for you a web
with threads of golden imagery;
painters are giving your form ever
new immortality.
The sea gives its pearls, the mines
their gold, the summer gardens their
flowers to deck you, to cover you, to
make you more precious.
The desire of men's hearts has shed
its glory over your youth.
You are one half woman and one
half dream.

Here, where the world is quiet,
Here, where all trouble seems
Dead winds' and spent waves' riot
In doubtful dreams of dreams;
I watch the green field growing
For reaping folk and sowing,
For harvest-time and mowing,
A sleepy world of streams.

I am tired of tears and laughter,
And men that laugh and weep;
Of what may come hereafter
For men that sow to reap:
I am weary of days and hours,
Blown buds of barren flowers,
Desires and dreams and powers
And everything but sleep.

Here life has death for neighbour,

The furl of fresh-leaved dogrose down
His cheeks the forth-and-flaunting sun
Had swarthed about with lion-brown
Before the Spring was done.

His locks like all a ravel-rope’s-end,
With hempen strands in spray—
Fallow, foam-fallow, hanks—fall’n off their ranks,
Swung down at a disarray.

Or like a juicy and jostling shock
Of bluebells sheaved in May
Or wind-long fleeces on the flock
A day off shearing day.

Then over his turnèd temples—here—
Was a rose, or, failing that,

I1.
Breathers of wisdom won without a quest,
.
Quaint uncouth dreamers, voices high and strange;
.
Flutists of lands where beauty hath no change,
.
And wintry grief is a forgotten guest,
.
Sweet murmurers of everlasting rest,
.
For whom glad days have ever yet to run,
.
And moments are as aeons, and the sun
.
But ever sunken half-way toward the west.1.
Often to me who heard you in your day,
.

With close rapt ears, it could not choose but seem
.

. Oh! pleasant exercise of hope and joy!
For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood
Upon our side, we who were strong in love!
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!--Oh! times,
In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways
Of custom, law, and statute, took at once
The attraction of a country in romance!
When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights,
When most intent on making of herself
A prime Enchantress--to assist the work
Which then was going forward in her name!

Brittle beauty, that nature made so frail,
Whereof the gift is small, and short the season;
Flow'ring today, tomorrow apt to fail,
Tickle treasure, abhorrèd of reason;
Dangerous to deal with, vain, of none avail,
Costly in keeping, past not worth two peason;
Slipper in sliding, as is an eelës tail,
Hard to obtain, once gotten, not geason;
Jewel of jeopardy that peril doth assail,
False and untrue, enticèd oft to treason,
Enemy to youth; that most may I bewail.
Ah, bitter sweet, infecting as the poison,

The goblet is sparkling with purpled-tinged wine,
Bright glistens the eye of each guest,
When into the hall comes the Minstrel divine,
To the good he now brings what is best;
For when from Elysium is absent the lyre,
No joy can the banquet of nectar inspire.

He is blessed by the gods, with an intellect clear,
That mirrors the world as it glides;
He has seen all that ever has taken place here,
And all that the future still hides.
He sat in the god's secret councils of old
And heard the command for each thing to unfold.

Ah! happy he, upon whose birth each god
Looks down in love, whose earliest sleep the bright
Idalia cradles, whose young lips the rod
Of eloquent Hermes kindles--to whose eyes,
Scarce wakened yet, Apollo steals in light,
While on imperial brows Jove sets the seal of might!
Godlike the lot ordained for him to share,
He wins the garland ere he runs the race;
He learns life's wisdom ere he knows life's care,
And, without labor vanquished, smiles the grace.
Great is the man, I grant, whose strength of mind,