I, named Nizami, child of Samarcand,
The holy place whose towers aspire to heaven,
Whose domes are blue as heaven’s inverted cup,
The consecrated shrine, head of Islam,
Whose heart is at Meccah, the happy spot
Where bloom the gardens of the Heart’s Delight,
Where in the house upon the Shepherd’s Hill
Wise men pursue the pathway of the stars—
I, even Nizami, write this record down
In God’s name, merciful, compassionate,
A proof of his compassion.
[Pg 78]
When my youth
Burned in my body like a new-fed flame,
When wisdom seemed an easy flower to pluck,
And knowledge fruit that ripens in a day;
Ah me! that merry When so long ago
I was a pupil of that man of men,
Omar, the tent-maker of Naishapur,
That is Khorassan’s crown, Omar the wise,
Whose wisdom read the golden laws of life,
And made them ours for ever in his songs,
Omar the star-gazer.
One day by chance,
I taxing all my student’s store of wit
With thought of is and is not, good and bad,
And fondly dreaming that my fingers soon
[Pg 79]
Would close upon the key of heaven and earth,
I met my master in a garden walk,
Musing as was his wont, I knew not what,
Perhaps some better mode of marshalling
Those daily soldiers of the conquering years,
Perchance some subtler science which the stars
Ciphered in fire upon the vaulted sky
For him alone, perchance on some rare rhymes
Pregnant with mighty thoughts, or on some girl,
Star-eyed and cypress-slender, tulip-cheeked
And jasmine-bosomed, for he loved such well,
And deemed it wisdom.
Omar saw me not,
And would have passed me curtained in his thoughts;
[Pg 80]
But I, perked up with youthful consequence
At mine own wisdom, plucked him by the sleeve,
And with grave salutation, as befits
The pupil to the master, stayed his course
And craved his patience.
Omar gazed at me
With the grave sweetness which his servants loved,
And gave me leave to speak, which I, on fire
To tell the thing I thought, made haste to do,
And poured my babble in the master’s ear
Of solving human doubt.
When I had done,
And, panting, looked into my master’s eyes
To read therein approval of my plan,
He turned his head, and for a little while
[Pg 81]
Waited in silence, while my petulant mind
Galloped again the course of argument
And found no flaw, all perfect.
Still he stood
Silent, and I, the riddle-reader, vexed
At long-delayed approval, touched again
His sleeve, and with impatient reverence
Said,
‘Master, speak, that I may garner up
In scented manuscripts the thoughts of price
That fall from Omar’s lips.’
He smiled again
In sweet forgiveness of my turbulent mood,
And with a kindly laughter in his eyes
He said,
[Pg 82]
‘I have been thinking, when I die,
That I should like to slumber where the wind
May heap my tomb with roses.’
So he spoke,
And then with thoughtful face and quiet tread
He past and left me staring, most amazed
At such a pearl from such a sea of thought,
And marvelling that great philosophers
Can pay so little sometimes heed to truth
When truth is thrust before them. God be praised!
I am wiser now, and grasp no golden key.
Years came and went, and Omar passed away,
First from those garden walks of Samarcand
Where he and I so often watched the moon
[Pg 83]
Silver the bosoms of the cypresses,
And so from out the circle of my life,
And in due season out of life itself;
And his great name became a memory
That clung about me like the scent of flowers
Beloved in boyhood, and the wheeling years
Ground pleasure into dust beneath my feet;
And so the world wagged till there came a day
When I that had been young and was not young,
I found myself in Naishapur, and there
Bethought me of my master dead and gone,
And the musk-scented preface of my youth.
Then to myself I said, ‘Nizami, rise
And seek the tomb of Omar.’
So I sought,
[Pg 84]
And after seeking found, and, lo! it lay
Beyond a garden full of roses, full
As the third heaven is full of happy eyes;
And every wind that whispered through the trees
Scattered a heap of roses on his grave;
Yea, roses leaned, and from their odorous hearts
Rained petals on his marble monument,
Crimson as lips of angels.
Then my mind,
Sweeping the desert of departed years,
Leaped to that garden speech in Samarcand,
The cypress grove, my fretful questioning,
And the mild beauty of my master’s face.
Then I knelt down and glorified Allah,
Who is compassionate and merciful,
[Pg 85]
That of his boundless mercy he forgave
This singing sinner; for I surely knew
That all the leaves of every rose that dripped
Its tribute on the tomb where Omar sleeps,
Were tears and kisses that should smooth away
His record of offence; for Omar sinned,
Since Omar was a man.
He wished to sleep
Beneath a veil of roses; Heaven heard,
Forgave, and granted, and the perfumed pall
Hides the shrine’s whiteness. Glory to Allah!