The next verse, it was pointed out, would apply to the political
conditions of the present day as strikingly as to the region and era for
which it was written--
"A Sultan dreamed day-long of Peace,
The while his Rivals' armies grew:
They changed his Day-dreams into sleep
--The Peace, methinks, he never knew."
Woman appeared little, and wine not at all in the verse of the hunter-
poet, but there was at least one contribution to the love-philosophy of
the East--
"O Moon-faced Charmer, and Star-drowned Eyes,
And cheeks of soft delight, exhaling musk,
They tell me that thy charm will fade; ah well,
The Rose itself grows hue-less in the Dusk."
Finally, there was a recognition of the Inevitable, a chill breath
blowing across the poet's comfortable estimate of life--
"There is a sadness in each Dawn,
A sadness that you cannot rede:
The joyous Day brings in its train
The Feast, the Loved One, and the Steed.
Ah, there shall come a Dawn at last
That brings no life-stir to your ken,
A long, cold Dawn without a Day,
And ye shall rede its sadness then."
The verses of Ghurab came on the public at a moment when a comfortable,
slightly quizzical philosophy was certain to be welcome, and their
reception was enthusiastic.
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