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       They flee, yet neither wins the race.”

      Then the third Mubid questioned him and said —

       “Thirty knights before the king

       Pass along. Regard the thing

       Closely; one is gone. Again

       Look — the thirty are in train.”

      And Zal answered and spake —

       “Thirty knights of whom the train

       Is full, then fails, then fills again,

       Know, each moon is reckoned thus,

       So willed by God who governs us,

       And thy word is true of the faint moon’s wane,

       Now failing in darkness, now shining plain.”

      Then the fourth Mubid questioned him and said —

       “See a green garden full of springs;

       A strong man with a sickle keen

       Enters, and reaps both dry and green;

       No word thine utmost anguish wrings.”

      And Zal bethought him and replied —

       “Thy word was of a garden green,

       A reaper with a sickle keen,

       Who cuts alike the fresh and the dry

       Nor heedeth prayer nor any cry:

       Time is the reaper, we the grass;

       Pity nor fear his spirit has,

       But old and young he reaps alike.

       No rank can stay his sickle’s strike,

       No love, but he will leave it lorn,

       For to this end all men are born.

       Birth opes to all the gate of Life,

       Death shuts it down on love and strife,

       And Fate, that counts the breath of man,

       Measures to each a reckoned span.”

      Then the fifth Mubid questioned him and said —

       “Look how two lofty cypresses

       Spring up, like reeds, from stormy seas,

       There builds a bird his dwelling-place;

       Upon the one all night he stays,

       But swift, with the dawn, across he flies;

       The abandoned tree dries up and dies,

       While that whereon he sets his feet

       Breathes odours out, surpassing sweet.

       The one is dead for ever and aye,

       The other lives and blooms alway.”

      Then Zal yet again bethought him before he said —

       “Hear of the sea-born cypresses,

       Where builds a bird, and rests, and flees.

       From the Ram to the Scales the earth o’erpowers,

       Shadows obscure of the night that lowers,

       But when the Scales’ sign it must quit,

       Darkness and gloom o’ermaster it;

       The sides of heaven thy fable shows

       Whence grief to man or blessing flows,

       The sun like a bird flies to and fro,

       Weal with him bringing, but leaving woe.”

      Then the sixth Mubid questioned him, and it was the last question that he asked, and he deemed it the hardest of all to answer. And all men hung upon his words and listened to the answer of Zal. And the Mubid said —

       “Builded on a rock I found

       A town. Men left the gate and chose

       A thicket on the level ground.

       Soon their soaring mansions rose

       Lifting roofs that reach the moon,

       Some men slaves, some kings, became,

       Of their earlier city soon

       The memory died in all. Its name

       None breathed. But hark! an earthquake; down,

       Lost in the chasm lies the land-

       Now long they for their rock-built town,

       Enduring things they understand.

       Seek in thy soul the truth of this;

       This before kings proclaim, I was,

       If rightly thou the riddle rede,

       Black earth to musk thou hast changed indeed.”

      And Zal pondered this riddle but a little while, and then opened his mouth and

      said —

       “The eternal, final world is shown

       By image of a rock-built town;

       The thicket is our passing life,

       A place of pleasure and of pain,

       A world of dreams and eager strife,

       A time for labour, and loss, and gain;

       This counts thy heart-beats, at its will

       Prolongs their pulse or makes it still.

       But winds and earthquake rouse: a cry

       Goes up of bitterness and woe,

       Now we must leave our homes below

       And climb the rocky fastness high.

       Another reaps our fruit of pain,

       That yet to another leaves his gain;

       So was it aye, must so remain.

       Well for us if our name endure,

       Though we shall pass, beloved and pure,

       For all the evil man hath done,

       Stalks, when he dies, in the sight of the sun;

       When dust is strown on breast and head,

       Then desolation reigns with dread.”

      When Zal had spoken thus the Shah was glad, and an the

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