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| A VISION of the bright Shiraz, of Persian bards the theme: | |
| The vine with bunches laden hangs o’er the crystal stream; | |
| The nightingale all day her notes in rosy thickets trills, | |
| And the brooding heat-mist faintly lies along the distant hills. | |
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| About the plain are scattered wide in many a crumbling heap, | 5 |
| The fanes of other days, and tombs where Iran’s poets sleep; | |
| And in the midst, like burnished gems, in noonday light repose | |
| The minarets of bright Shiraz,—the City of the Rose. | |
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| One group beside the river-bank in rapt discourse are seen, | |
| Where hangs the golden orange on its boughs of purest green; | 10 |
| Their words are sweet and low, and their looks are lit with joy; | |
| Some holy blessing seems to rest on them and their employ. | |
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| The pale-faced Frank among them sits: what brought him from afar? | |
| Nor bears he bales of merchandise, nor teaches skill in war: | |
| One pearl alone he brings with him,—the Book of life and death;— | 15 |
| One warfare only teaches he,—to fight the fight of faith. | |
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| And Iran’s sons are round him, and one, with solemn tone, | |
| Tells how the Lord of Glory was rejected by his own; | |
| Tells, from the wondrous Gospel, of the trial and the doom, | |
| The words divine of love and might,—the scourge, the cross, the tomb! | 20 |
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| Far sweeter to the stranger’s ear those Eastern accents sound, | |
| Than music of the nightingale that fills the air around: | |
| Lovelier than balmiest odors sent from gardens of the rose, | |
| The fragrance from the contrite soul and chastened lip that flows. | |
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| The nightingales have ceased to sing, the roses’ leaves are shed, | 25 |
| The Frank’s pale face in Tocat’s field hath mouldered with the dead: | |
| Alone and all unfriended, midst his Master’s work he fell, | |
| With none to bathe his fevered brow, with none his tale to tell. | |
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| But still those sweet and solemn tones about him sound in bliss, | |
| And fragrance from those flowers of God for evermore is his: | 30 |
| For his the meed, by grace, of those who, rich in zeal and love, | |
| Turn many unto righteousness, and shine as stars above. | |
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