Dedication
TO
THE BEST OF FRIENDS
EVER LOYAL AND INSPIRING
MR. AND MRS. CHARLES M. SCHWAB
Paraphrase of Verses From Shaikh Sadi
By Edwin Arnold
In many lands I have wandered, and
wondered, and listened, and seen;
And many my friends and companions,
and teachers and lovers have been.
And nowhere a corner was there but I
gathered up pleasure and gain;
From a hundred gardens the rose-blooms,
from a thousand granaries grain;
And I said to my soul in secret, “Oh
thou, who from journeys art come!
It is meet we should bear some token of
love to the stayers at home;
For where is the traveller brings not from
Nile the sweet green reed,
Or Kashmiri silk, or musk-bags, or coral,
or cardamum seed?”
I was loath from all that Pleasaunce of
the Sun and his words and ways,
To come to my country giftless, and showing
no fruit of my days:
But, if my hands were empty of honey,
and pearls and gold,
There were treasures far sweeter than
honey, and marvellous things to be told.
Whiter than pearls and brighter than
the cups at a Sultan’s feast,
And these I have brought for love-tokens,
from the Lords of Truth, in my East.