Scrapbook of newspaper cuttings about Afghanistan [‎106v] (217/312)

grain of corn to the
No one hath proved any of the world's faithfulness or 1
sincerity,
And none but the faithless and perfidious have any
affection for it.
Fortune is like a potter ; it fashioneth and hreaketh.
Many, like unto me and thee, it hath created and
destroyed.
Every stone and clod of the world that may be looked
upon
Are all skulls—some thoae of Kings and some of
beggars. i
It is no ordinary people that make such a
strain as this popular amongst themselves, and
in the following there is the expression of that
morality which makes all the world of one
faith :
Shouldat thou bestow but a drop of water on the
thirsty,
It will become an ocean between thee and the fire of
hell; "
Shouldst thou give but
| hungry,
Velrily, it will be hereafter thy provision in eternity.
And so on through all those lofty sentiments
that form the groundwork of every religion, and
give the different families of humanity a com
mon platform of ethics whence to address each
other. In the next poem the " song-smith"
takes up the ever-favourite thetae of Oriental
singers, absence from the beloved one ; but with
the Sufi all such plaints refer to the souh For
it is his creed that the Divine Spirit is omni
present in nature, and that every material
atom and immaterial sensation are particles
of an emanation from it. Since He is all
beauty, sweet music, gentle breezes, fragrant
flowers, beauty in any form renews the
primary idea of His all-pervading presence,
and at once turns the mind from the immediate
obiject or enioyment, which is only the phantom
from the divine substance, to the one source
of all :
The face of the beloved, the sun, and the moon are all
three one.
Her stature, the Cyprus, and the pine are all three one.
I have not any need of honey or of sugar,
For the lips of . the beloved, honey, and sugar are all
three one.
When I recline on my couch without her by my side,
Fire, thorns, and this couch are all three one.
And so on, each time with a different simile,
the poet rings the changes on the beauties of the
desired and the misery of its non-attainment.
In quaint, happy turns of thought such as
these:
Though the bat hideth himself from the light of the
sun.
In what manner doth the sun sustain injury therefrom?
'Tis the nature of dogs to howl at the sight of the
moon.
And thus, by their yelping, bring disgrace on them
selves. •
The five fingers once had a dispute together,
At which the little finger acknowledged its own little
ness ;
There-is dignity in the very insignificance of form.
Hence fitness for the ring went unto the little finger—
each poem abounds, and in each lies a lesson.
Flowers, birds, insects, every created thing in
turn serves the poet's purpose ; but to under
stand them they require a double translation,
first into their application to humanity, and
thence to the soul and its aspirations.
Her two eyes are falcons, and her waving locks the
ringfeathers.
The falcons pounced and carried away the pigeon of my
heart.
I The curls of the pagan beauty became a cord about my
j neck.
The following verse introduces a poem of a i
very lofty turn of thought:
In loneliness and solitude seated, O monk! tell me ;
what thou gainest thereby ?
Wherefore makest thou this wide and ample world for
thyself so confined?
In every sect and religion I, indeed, seek after the
cause of the heart's sorrows.
But our space prevents us dwelling longer on
this aspect of Major Eaferty's most interesting
publication, as there is another to which we
would briefly r6fer. On the importance of the
study of Oriental languages we have often- in
sisted, and it was only a few weeks before the
present rupture with Afghanistan that we
indicated the immense value to our political
officers- of a competent knowledge of Pushtoo,
the language of the Afghans proper. That we
have on the frontier several officers competent to
conduct a delicate negotiation in this language
: Jnay suffice for the occasion, but it is not to our
credit that for every Pushtoo scholar in British
service there are many in the Russian. It is
now more than thirty years ago that the lan
guage first began-to form part of the regular
studies in the University of St. Petersburg,
and lectures on Afghan literature have for a
long time formed a feature of the training of
! officers for Eastern service. It is not to reproach I
again those once in authority in British India, I.
but now retired from the service of their active
labours, who in their time failed to appreciate
the importance of the study of Pushtoo, that
we refer to the present political aspect of
linguistic attainments, but rather to urge once
more the systematic and more extended culture
of the languages spoken, riot only on the Afghan,
but on the other frontiers of India.
♦ « Poetry of the Aff hans/' by MajorSRaverta'. Wil-1
; hams and Norgate,