Part 3

To Rückert belongs the unfading distinction of having introduced the original form of the Ghazel into European Literature. For this achievement he was particularly qualified by his poetic gift and his deft power of artistic adaptation. An enthusiastic and loyal pupil of Von Hammer, he soon surpassed his master by the greater accuracy of his scholarship, his finer and deeper insight, and his unrivalled power of sympathetically reproducing in German the spirit of Oriental Poetry. His renderings of certain Gazels of Jeláleddín in 1819 and 1822 are masterpieces of their kind in the fineness and delicacy of their form, and they have never been equalled by similar subsequent attempts. The highest praise that Mr. Nicholson can bestow on the later excellent contribution in German of other 75 of Jelál's Ghazels by Von Rosenzweig, the accomplished translator of Hafiz, is 'that we are occasionally reminded of Rückert'; and, strangely enough, Mr. Nicholson makes no other allusion to Rückert. Rückert, whose many wonderful feats of this kind not only from Persian, but from Arabic, Sanskrit, and even Chinese, are beyond all praise, was quite conscious both of the success and importance of his effort, as is evident from the four lines on 'The Form of the Gasel' which he prefixed to his Versions of Jelál's Gasels, which may be rendered thus:—

The new Form which I first, here in thy Garden plant, May, Fatherland, enrich the Garland of thy clime; And in my steps may Poets, of happy power ne'er scant, Sing true in Persian Gazel, as erst in alien rhyme.

Rückert's example and encouragement have not been ineffective in German Literature. Besides his own original Gazels addressed to his distinguished teacher Von Hammer, Platen with a poetic versatility and elegance of form scarcely inferior to his own, Paul Heyse, and others have written excellent German Gazels, and the form is now quite naturalised in German Literature. But it is still practically an exotic in the domain of English verse. One of the first and best regular Gazels in English known to the writer, was done into English rhyme by Archbishop Trench, who represents it as by DSCHELALEDDIN (_sic_), but it is really only an imitation of one of Rückert's Versions. Some of the recent translators of Hafiz—especially Mr. H. Bicknell—have given elegant translations of some of his Gazels, in proper form.[21] Mr. Nicholson, notwithstanding his disbelief in the adequacy of English verse-renderings, has given two exemplary specimens in an Appendix. The Fifty Gazels here presented in English have been all done after Rückert's versions, of which they are really renderings—as indicated on the Title Page. Even when the translator felt tempted to conform more literally in some minor details to the Persian original, or fancied he could do so, he invariably returned to Rückert's form, his admiration for Rückert's judgment and art having overcome all hesitation. To Rückert, then, belongs any merit found in these free imitations of Jeláleddín; to the translator must be attributed any defect in his attempt to follow, always _longo intervallo_, the traces of the footsteps of these two great Masters. Rückert alone has been able to do justice to the poetic form and thought of Jeláleddín, and it may be deemed as daring to try to imitate Rückert as to copy the Original itself. But the attempt, even where it fails, will be most readily forgiven by the Persian scholars who best know the difficulties that have to be overcome on both sides. What is here presented is but a slight endeavour to popularise, after a holiday excursion into long-loved fields, their own much more important work, and mayhap to win a wider, well-deserved interest for it. The child who strays through the Flower Garden, will, as by irresistible impulse, pluck some of its fairest blossoms here and there, and if twined together and offered to the strong hand that cultivated and reared them, they will hardly fail to be recognised as an offering of gratitude and affection, and to be accepted with a kindly, indulgent smile.

It is beautifully related in 'Attar's Biographies of the Sufi Mystics and Saints,' that the sweet-soul'd, God-absorb'd Rábia—the Saint Teresa and Madame Guyon of Persia—was once asked: 'Dost thou hate the Devil?' '_No!_' she replied. And they asked: 'Why not?' '_Because_,' said she, '_my love to God leaves me no time to hate him_.'[22] We confess, however, that we _have_ hated this new-patch'd Omar Khayyám of Mr. Fitzgerald, and have even at times been tempted to scorn the miserable, self-deluded, unhealthy fanatics of his Cult. But when we have looked again into the shining face and the glad eyes of Jeláleddín, 'the Glory of Religion,' our hate has passed into pity and our scorn into compassion. In the light of that bright Vision we cannot pause—we have 'no time' nor inclination for it—to deal, as it deserves, with this latest literary craze and delusion. The Persian Scholars have been amazed, and earnest Critics who still believe in the spiritual purpose of Poetry, have been distressed by this infatuation of the young free English mind, whose issue can only be the humiliation of convicted ignorance, spurious idolatry, and vain remorseful regret after the mad midnight debauch. All that is highest and noblest and truest in manhood is not to be thus wilfully flung away for nothing, or to be foolishly bartered for the smart Epigrams of the rudest wit and shallowest reflection. Mr. Fitzgerald by clever tailoring has indeed clothed his Satan in the well-fitting robes of an Angel of Light so that he might 'seduce, if it were possible, the very Elect,'—but for _them_ all in vain do such 'lean and flashy songs, grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw.' He has not hesitated even to eke out his vapid pessimistic song with verses of his own, and to make his poor old Omar's voice more cracked, querulous and quavering than it ever really was. And he has therefore rightly enough separated his Bacchanalian Rhymster from the holy Choir of the sweet-voiced Persian Songsters who ever made all the grove vocal with devout praise of God. Mr. Fitzgerald's Omar—he himself declares—is not a Sufi poet at all; he is but an old tipsy toper, whose drink is literally and really that of Bacchus; and he drinks—and _drinks_!—and _drinks_! till we hear him snore even in broad day, and till his dimm'd eyes and fuddled brain cannot distinguish the plainest things even in the clearest light. With Fitzgerald's hero it is the old, sad story over again; it is _drinking—not deep thinking at all_!—that has brought him to this. Surely we know the 'Astronomer Poet' quite well now. M. Nicolas, and still better, Mr. Whinfield, have given us his own Persian Quatrains, and Mr. Payne has translated them best of all; but Edward Fitzgerald has turned them into a strange haunting music of his own, and in his hands the Astronomer Poet becomes _really_ what our gifted friend Mr. Coulson Kernahan has so graphically and terribly depicted: A LITERARY GENT, A Study in Vanity and Dipsomania! Who cares now for his senile scepticism, his pessimistic whine, his withered cynicism, his agnostic blindness and despair, his insolent misanthropy, his impotent blasphemies? We know it all too well; it is only the work of shattered nerves, a muddled brain, and irreligious self-dissipation. See how the Astronomer Poet staggers along to his watch-tower, with that tell-tale nose and flushed brow! How his trembling hands fumble as he vainly tries to focus the stars! How his bleared eyes can find neither Zenith nor Azimuth, Algol nor Aldeboran, nor the Pointers, nor the Pole Star; and how impudently he swears in his blindness, that he too has swept through the Heavens and found _no God_! that man is but a 'Pot _of Clay_,' without freedom and without hope! and that all the World is bitter and hollow and bad! _Great Thinker_, forsooth! Well and truly does he himself say that he was 'never _deep_ in anything but—_Wine_'!

But Mr. Fitzgerald protests that while Omar was not a Mystic, but only a Bacchanalian Poet, and 'that while the Wine Omar celebrates is simply the Juice of the Grape, he _bragged_ more than he drank of it.' But this surely is to make him worse morally than the poor will-broken, self-abandoned drunkard! Yet after all, the excuse of 'the moderate drinker' is never quite to be trusted, as Mr. Fitzgerald himself in this case only too fully proves. The 'Tavern' too is a literal Tavern, and his very first presentation of his Hero introduces him to us crying for fresh air at cock-crow, after the night's carouse, and his kindred thirsty votaries shouting from the outside to get in:

'And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before The Tavern shouted—"Open then the Door!"'

We soon find that he has only one fixed Article in his Creed—the _certainty_ of Annihilation:

'One thing at least is certain—_This_ Life flies; One thing is certain and the rest is Lies; The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.'

The _only_ thing here _certain_ however, is that this, according to all Persian Prosody, is a _bad_, illegitimate Quatrain, and Omar himself would never have rhymed it thus! And notwithstanding these 'brave words,' it seems almost certain that the poor soul of the 'Astronomer Poet' did not entirely die out with his last unsavoury breath; for is there not the strongest _internal_ evidence—and pray, mark it well, in these days of the Higher Criticism—that it was Omar Redivivus, in an ill-starred, yet most sincere and loveable Rustic Bard of our own, who sang gloriously at the same psychological moment, with his own boon-companions, after seven centuries of world-wide drinking, again:

'It is the moon, _I ken her horn_, That's blinkin' in the lift sae hie; She shines sae bricht to wyle us hame, But by my sooth she'll wait a wee! We are na fou, we're no that fou, But just a drappie in our ee; The _Cock may craw_, the day may daw, And aye we'll taste the barley bree!'

We are sorry to believe, notwithstanding Mr. Fitzgerald's rather lame and halting Apology, that it became, more and more, a confirmed habit; and that 'willy-nilly' the old Nature-tyrant had it out with him too. Alas! that it should so often be so with these genial poetic souls-poets, who in their youth 'begin in gladness, and thereof in the end doth come Despondency and Madness'! In vain does the much-admired Translator protest; for again he shows poor parched old Khayyám 'by the Tavern Door _agape_'!; the Nightingale only pipes to him 'Wine! Wine! Wine!'; his burden of Clay 'with long Oblivion is gone _dry_'!; his last hope and only prayer is: 'Ah, with the Grape my fading Life provide, And _wash the Body_ whence the Life has died'; and his last word and the final horror is—'an _empty_ Glass!' But he is much more candid in his 'cups' than his ingenious Translator, as all such are wont at a certain stage to be; for he quite frankly tells us his Rule of Life: 'Drink!—for once dead you never shall return!' Nay, he takes us, in the most friendly way and with irresistible candour, into his most intimate confidence, and informs us how and when, and how deliberately, when he found out 'the sorry Scheme of Things,' his glorified new Creed and boasted new Life came about:—

'You know, my Friends, with what a brave Carouse I made a Second Marriage in my house; Divorced _old barren Reason_ from my Bed, And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse!'

And what _possibly_ could come of it, but what _did_ come? When it could no longer be disputed that the Day _was_ dawning, _then_ the Reckoning _must_ be settled, and his last leering grin is for his drunken boon-companions, now alas! ignominiously low:—

'Landlady, count the lawin', The Day is near the dawin'; _Ye're a' blind drunk, boys, And I'm but jolly fou_. Hey tutti, taiti, How tutti, taiti— _Wha's fou now?_'

O ye self-blinded, neurotic Votaries of the Omar Khayyám Cult, be warned in time: for be sincerely assured that on counting 'the lawin', Paying the Reckoning will be all that you will ever get, even at your drunkest, out of this bankrupt, blustering, purblind Braggart!

To crown all his fatal Candour, Omar insists, as with a sigh of vain regret, on most truly telling us his own callous judgment of it all, seeing some faint inextinguishable spark of Conscience still remained in him, as in the Ancient Mariner:—

'Indeed the Idols I have loved so long Have done my credit in this World much wrong: Have _drown'd my Glory in a shallow Cup And sold my Reputation for a song_!'

So, too, with Edward Fitzgerald, who, with consummate skill, has here played the part of 'Mr. Sludge, the Medium' to perfection. And we only wish that Robert Browning, in his Berserker rage over the painful betrayal of what was dearest to him in life, had 'spit' _this_, and not what he frantically did, 'in his face' as it burst from him in scorn of one who confessed:—

'I cheated when I could, Rapped with my toe-joints, set sham hands at work!...'

_'R-r-r ... Cowardly scamp! I only wish I could burn down the house, And spoil your sniggering._'[23]

But no! we have 'no time' to waste in hating even this dram-drinking, drivelling, droning Dotard. For hark!—'That strain I heard was of a higher mood'! Its very first note 'laps us in Elysium,' and we at once forget man's self-inflicted misery and all his morbid diseases and cares—'Do I wake or sleep?'...

... 'Tender is the Night, And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays; But here there is no Light Save what from Heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I cannot see what Flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft Incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmèd darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable Month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; White hawthorn and the pastoral eglantine; Fast fading violets covered up in leaves; And mid-May's eldest child The coming musk-rose full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves....

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The Voice I heard this passing Night was heard In ancient days by Emperor and clown; Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charm'd magic-casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.'

Yes; that is surely the sweetest, the tenderest, the heavenliest of all the Persian Nightingales, come back to us in our sorest need, and singing to us amid the glory of the Resurrection of Life, in the Festival of another Spring, as he never sang in the English air before. It is a Western youthful Poet's Dream of JELÁLEDDÍN renewing the first notes of his immortal song, and chanting again the Hymn of Eternal Life, solemn yet joyous, mystic yet clear: stirring what is deepest in our heart and driving away our sorrow, till 'all the pulses of our being, reanimated, beat anew!'

'O ye hopes, that stir within me, Health comes with you from above! God is with me, God is in me! I cannot die, if Life be Love.'

Thus does our own deep, mystic Singer, Coleridge, echo, in kindred strains, the deepest Faith of JELÁLEDDÍN.

W. H.

[1] Geschichte der schönen Redekünste Persiens, mit einer Blüthenlese aus zweihundert persischen Dichtern. Von Joseph von Hammer. Wien, 1818. Pp. 163-198. The petty criticism of some of Von Hammer's details has no relevancy here, and is hardly worth referring to in connection with his gigantic achievements. There are spots on the Sun!

[2] Mesnevi oder Doppelverse des Scheich Mewlânâ Dschelâl-ed-dín Rumi. Aus dem Persischen übertragen von Georg Rosen. 1849.

[3] Works of Sir William Jones, Vol. IV., On the Mystical Poetry of the Persians and Hindus. See Note A.

[4] History of Persia. 1815. Sir John Malcolm was surprised in Persia, as Rosen was at Constantinople, by the knowledge which the common people had of the great Persian Poets. He says:—'I was forcibly struck with this fact during my residence in Persia. I found several of my servants well acquainted with the poetry of their country; and when I was at Isfahan in 1800, I was surprised to hear a common tailor that was at work repairing one of my tents, entertain his companions with repeating some of the finest of the mystical odes of Háfidz.'

[5] Biographical Notices of Persian Poets, etc. 1846. A conscientious bit of work for the time, but inadequately edited, and now practically superseded.

[6] One e.g. by F. Falconer (but not in the Persian form) in July, 1839.

[7] The Mesnevi (usually known as the Mesneviyi Sherīf, or Holy Mesnevi of Mevlānā (our Lord) Jelálu-'d-dín, Muhammed, er-Rumi). Book the First, etc., by James W. Redhouse. London, 1881.

Masnavi i Ma'navi. The Spiritual Couplets of Maulána Jalálu-'d-dín Muhammad Rumi, Translated and abridged by E. H. Whinfield, M.A., Late of H.M. Bengal Civil Service. 2nd Ed. 1898 (with an interesting Introduction).

[8] Selected Poems from the Dīvāni Shamsi Tabrīz. Edited and Translated with an Introduction, Notes, and Appendices, by Reynold A. Nicholson, M.A., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Cambridge University Press, 1898.

[9] A Literary History of Persia From the Earliest Times until Firdawsí. By Edward G. Browne, M.A., M.B., Sir Thomas Adams' Professor of Arabic and sometime Lecturer in Persian in the University of Cambridge, 1902.

[10] Hegel's Encyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse. § 573. Werke, Bd. VII, 461.

[11] Wallace's Hegel's Philosophy of Mind translated. Oxford, 1894, p. 190.—The four Gazels from which Hegel quotes, are given in the following Series in the Rückert-Persian form—as XLVIII, XII, XLIII, II.

[12] As regards Hegel's Philosophy of Art generally, and the particular point under consideration, reference may be allowed to my little book: 'The Philosophy of Art, by Hegel and C. L. Michelet,' 1886. See especially pp. 94-6.

[13] Hegel's Werke, X, 473. For Hegel's view of the character of the Persian Lyrical Poetry, see note _B_. M. Bénard's French Translation, which has been much praised, gives the passage quoted above, only in a summary form, and in it the reference to Rückert is entirely left out. He too, like so many other translators, has the happy knack of slipping over a troublesome phrase at times, while gracefully flourishing an elegant sentence before the delighted eyes of his guileless Reader!

[14] Ssufismus sive Theosophia Persarum Pantheistica quam ex MSS. Persicis, Arabicis, Turcicis, fruit atque illustravit F. A. G. Tholuck. 1821.

[15] Blüthensammlung aus der Morgenländischen Mystik, nebst einer Einleitung über Mystik überhaupt und Morgenländische insbesondere. Von F. A. G. Tholuck, Professor zu Berlin. 1825.

[16] Werke, x. 468.

[17] Specimen Poeseos Persicae. Vienna, 1771.

[18] A specimen of Persian Poetry, or Odes of Hafez: with an English Translation and Paraphrase ... chiefly from Baron Revizky. By John Richardson, F.S.A., 1774. 2nd Ed. by Rousseau, 1802.

[19] Grammatik, Poetik und Rhetorik der Perser. Nach dem siebenten Bande des Heft Kolzum, Dargestellt von Friedrich Rückert. Neu herausgegeben von W. Pertsch, 1874, p. 57.

[20] A History of Ottoman Poetry, 1900, p. 80. See also Mr. Gibb's Ottoman Poems, 1882, p. xxxvi. Both contain excellent Gazels.

[21] Hafiz of Shiraz: Selections from his Poems by H. Bicknell. 1875.

[22] E. G. Browne, _Op. cit._ p. 399.

[23] If anyone is inclined to think anything in this criticism—which has been much curtailed—too severe, let him or her turn to Von Hammer's Account of Omar Khayyám in Note C and following Remarks.

Gazels of Jeláleddín

Done into English

'Why heed the Critics who delight to dart Their sneer-tipped arrows at translator's art? The poet's work remains his own at last Though it in other languages be cast. And in the sky of Fame it still will shine, By that which made it at the first divine. But in this foreign dress some soul may see A hint of that which fascinated me; Some deep impression be still deeper made When by our muse-beloved tongue conveyed; Some beauty be with newer beauty set; Some thought that will with fresh emotion fret Some gentle breast, or with strange music sweep O'er heaving waters of the spirit's deep.'

EDWARD ROBESON TAYLOR of San Francisco.

Light

I.

Until the glorious Sun hath vanquished Night, The Birds of Day cower trembling with affright. But lo! a bright glance bids the Tulip ope; O Heart, awake thou too, in Duty's might. The Sun's Sword sheds in reddening flush of Dawn The Blood of Night, and puts the Foe to flight. The Soul still full of sleep, dreams Night prevails; But no! Day comes, and triumphs full in sight. While grey Dawn lingers, dubious yet is Day; But in Day's glow, who still can doubt the Light. The Light grows in the East; I in the West On Mountain top, reflect the Morn's delight. To Beauty's Sun, I'm but the pale moon here; Then look from me towards the Sun's face bright. The Light in East is called JELÁLEDDÍN[24]; And here my verse reflects its glowing White.

[24] The Splendour of the Faith.

Death and Life

II.

Death endeth sure Life's need and pain; Yet Life in fear would Death restrain. Life only sees dark Death's dread Hand, Not that bright Cup it offered plain. So shrinks from Love the tender Heart, As if from threat of being slain. But when true Love awakens, dies The Self, that despot dark and vain. Then let him die in Night's black hour, And freely breathe in Dawn again.

Invocation

III.

Soul of mine, thou dawning Light: Be not far, O be not far! Love of mine, thou Vision bright: Be not far, O be not far! Life is where thou smilest sweetly; Death is in thy parting look; Here mid Death and Life's fierce fight: Be not far, O be not far! I am East when thou art rising; I am West when thou dost set; Bring Heaven's own radiant hues to sight: Be not far, O be not far! See how well my Turban fitteth, yet the Parsee Girdle binds me; Cord and Wallet I bear light: Be not far, O be not far! True Parsee and true Brahman, a Christian, yet a Mussulman; Thee I trust, Supreme by Right: Be not far, O be not far! In all Mosques, Pagodas, Churches, I do find One Shrine alone; Thy Face is there my sole delight: Be not far, O be not far! Thine the World's all-loving Heart; and for it I yearn and pray; O take not from my Heart thy flight: Be not far, O be not far! Thee, the World's Eternal Centre, here I circle round in prayer; Thy absence is last judgment quite: Be not far, O be not far! Thine, Judgment Day and Blessedness: Mine is Bliss when Thou art nigh; Keep me circling in thy Might: Be not far, O be not far! Fair World Rose, O blossom forth; sweet Heart-buds unfold in Love; Put on the longing Soul's pure White: Be not far, O be not far! O Rose, hear through Night's silence, how he thrills—thy Nightingale; As if I did his Notes indite: Be not far, O be not far! JELÁLEDDÍN, all loving, let Love's Heart resist no more: Hear him chaunting, Day and Night: Be not far, O be not far!

Faith

IV.