XCVI.

Yet Ah, that Spring should vanish with the Rose! That Youth's sweet-scented manuscript should close! The Nightingale that in the branches sang, Ah whence, and whither flown again, who knows!

This quatrain is translated from C. 223.

Alas! that the book of youth is folded up? And that this fresh purple spring is winter-stricken;[90] That bird of joy, whose name is Youth, Alas! I know not when it came nor when it went.

_Ref._: C. 223, L. 332, B. 328, S.P. 128, B. ii. 155, T. 161.--W. 155, N. 128, V. 334.

XCVII.*

Would but the Desert of the Fountain yield One glimpse--if dimly, yet indeed, reveal'd, To which the fainting Traveller might spring, As springs the trampled herbage of the field!

This quatrain is inspired by C. 509.

Oh! would that there were a place of repose, Or that we might come to the end of the road; Would that from the heart of earth, after a hundred thousand years, We might all hope to blossom again like the verdure.

_Ref._: C. 509, L. 768, B. 754, S.P. 395, B. ii. 522.--W. 442, N. 400, V. 820.

XCVIII.*

Would but some wingéd Angel ere too late Arrest the yet unfolded Roll of Fate, And make the stern Recorder otherwise Enregister, or quite obliterate!

This quatrain in its original form in the second edition was closer to the original Persian.

Oh if the World were but to re-create, That we might catch ere closed the Book of Fate, And make the Writer on a fairer leaf Inscribe our names, or quite obliterate!

It owes its inspiration to N 457.

I would that God should entirely alter the world, And that he should do it now, that I might see him do it; And either that he should cross my name from the Roll, Or else raise my condition from want to plenty.[91]

_Ref._: N. 457, S.P. 451.--W. 486, V. 841.