Chapter VI: Story on Repose after Difficulty

By the vet'rans of affable speech, I've been told,That there dwelt in this city a man very old.He had seen many monarchs and times and decrees,And had lived since the days of the great Amralis.The withered, old tree had a fruit, fresh and sweet,With the fame of whose beauty the town was replete.In the chin of that charmer a wonder was shown,For an apple has never on cypress-tree grown.On account of his mirth and the torture he spread,His father found pleasure in shaving his head.The old life of short hope, with a razor's keen blade,The head of his son like the sun's surface made.From its sharpness, the steel that from stone, once, had sprung,On the fault of the fairy-cheek fastened its tongue.The razor that 'gainst his rare beauty transgressed,Had its head, then, within its own belly depressed.Like a harp, very bashful, the pretty-faced headHung down, and the fall'n hair around it was spread.To a person, whose heart had inclined to the child,When his heart-fettered eyes grew distracted and wild,Some one said, "You have suffered oppression and pain;Do not flit round this fanciful passion again !Turn your back, like the moth, from his love that appears,For his candle of beauty's extinguished with shears."The lover astute gave a harrowing yell;Saying, " Fickle engagements with profligates dwell.It is right that the son be good-natured and fair ;Let the father in ignorance cut off his hair!My soul with his friendship is thoroughly mixed ;My heart to his hair's not suspended or fixed."When you own a good face, let not sorrow remain !For although the hair falls it will grow in again.The vine will not always a ripe cluster show ;It may either throw leaves or to fruit it may go.Great men drop 'neath a veil, like the sun's brilliant ball ;Like a live coal in water the envious fall.The sun by degrees from the cloud will arise,And under the water the live ember dies.Oh agreeable friend, for the darkness don't care !Who knows but the water of life may be there?Did not Earth, after trembling, composure acquire?Did not Sadi make journeys to gain his desire?At defeated desires, burn your head not with thought!Night pregnant with daylight, oh brother, you've got !