Muntakhab al-tawarikh 20.1.1

20.1.1

If you saddle the piebald horse of Circumstance, and if the white horse of state leads thee beside him, And if the garden of your pleasure in happiness copies fair the past memories of Paradise, Be not proud, for this mean time will unexpectedly draw its pen through the writing of your fortune. Time is like a wind, which at the first draws from the cheek of the rose the veil with all respect, Then after a week has passed in the midst of the garden, drags its body with ignominy to the dust. The world at one time brings forward by turn in the narrow course, the horses of honour and disgrace. The crafty fowler gives the bird grain, and then draws it into the noose of his artfully laid snare. One man who has lost all hope, gains honour. Another who is always hopeful in spite of all is disgraced. Strange is it if a man who has walked in the shadow of poverty should court a favour from the sun? Be content, if you have a portion of wisdom, that the ignorant should be oppressed by the foolish. What of that man who, in the assembly of mirth and merriment quaffs the wine of pleasure from the cup of luxuriousness? What of him who sitting behind the wall of sorrow suffers from the after effects of sorrow and the worry of toil? At last the hand of fate takes both of them straight off to the brink of the pit of death. Happy is the brave hearted man who like Sharaf draws the foot of fidelity beneath the skirt of retirement.