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If only one dare tell the lovely things
The nightingale unto the red rose sings!
'See! I am Yusuf's flower,' the red rose cries,
And wide and warm her sanguine bodice flings.
O ignorant world that brutishly denies
Free speech unto the exquisitely wise;
A thousand pearls—yet only one is threaded!
Alas! for noble truth that hourly dies.
Strange in a world so wonderfully planned
The thick-wit fool should always rule the land,—
Ah I well, the cup must solve that riddle too,
'Tis more than we shall ever understand.
But shall the jocund wise be sent to school
For ever to the narrow-minded fool,
The evil-smelling saint outlaw the rose,
The joyless make for joy a joyless rule?
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