Chapter II: Story of the Holy Man and the Impudent Poet

To a good-hearted man came a poet, one day,And said, " I am helplessly stuck in the clayTen direms I owe to so squeezing a dun,That one dang from his hand, on my back is a ton.At night, on account of him, wretched's my state;Like a shadow, all day at my heels he's in wait.He has made, by harsh language which nature resents,The core of my heart, like my house door, all rents.Perhaps God, to him, since the day he was born,Beside those ten coins, has not given a corn.To A in Fate's volume, he could not attain;He has read nothing else than the chapter on gain.Not a day does the sun from the hills upwards soar,That that infamous sneak does not knock at my door.The kind benefactor I'm anxious to know,Who will save me with coin from that hard-hearted foe."The kind-natured man heard him chatter and grieve,And loosened two gold pieces inside his sleeve.The gold reached the hand of that rare, fabling one;Out he went with his face shining bright, like the sun.Some one said to the sheikh—"You don't know this black sheep ?Over him, when he dies, 'twould be folly to weep.The beggar who saddles the tiger, indeed!Gives the Knight and the Queen to the famed Abuzid!"The servant of God, in a rage, said, "Desist !You are scarcely a preacher; attentively, list!If what I imagined, should prove to be right,I have guarded his honour from people of spite ;If he practised deception and impudence, yet,Take care not to think I experience regret !For my honour I've saved, by the money I gave,From such a deceitful and talkative knave."On the good and the bad, lavish silver and gold!One's an excellent work, th' other vice will withhold.Oh happy is he who with wise men remains,And the virtues of those who are pious, obtains!If wisdom and knowledge within you appear,With rev'rence to Sadi's advice you'll give ear ;For in this manner, chiefly, his eloquence rolls ;Not on eyes nor on curls, not on ears nor on moles.