
The Figure in the Carpet http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext96/fgcpt10h.htm (1896).
A Persian Song of Hafiz, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "'T was he that ranged the words at random flung, Pierced the fair pearls and them together strung", Eastwick: Anvari Suhaili. (Translated from Firdousi).
The Figure in the Carpet http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext96/fgcpt10h.htm (1896).
“I make no doubt… that these rules are simple, artless, and natural.”
The Art of Persuasion
“The Bards also, who by the praises of their verse transmit to distant ages the fame of heroes slain in battle, poured forth at ease their lays in abundance.”
Vos quoque qui fortes animas, belloque peremptas
Laudibus in longum vates dimittitis aevum,
Plurima securi fudistis carmina, Bardi.
Book I, line 447 (tr. J. D. Duff).
Pharsalia
“Will change the pebbles of our puddly thought
To orient pearls.”
Second Week, Third Day, Part i. Compare: "Now morn, her rosy steps in th’ eastern clime, Advancing, sow’d the earth with orient pearl", John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book v, line 1.; "Orient pearls", William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream, act iv. sc. 1.
La Seconde Semaine (1584)
Prologue
Source: All for Love (1678)
Context: Let those find fault whose wit's so very small,
They've need to show that they can think at all;
Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow;
He who would search for pearls, must dive below.
Fops may have leave to level all they can;
As pigmies would be glad to lop a man.
Half-wits are fleas; so little and so light,
We scarce could know they live, but that they bite.
Spiritual Canticle of The Soul and The Bridegroom
Context: Let us rejoice, O my Beloved!
Let us go forth to see ourselves in Thy beauty,
To the mountain and the hill,
Where the pure water flows:
Let us enter into the heart of the thicket. ~ 36
In a Copy of Omar Khayyam.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Variant: These pearls of thought in Persian gulfs were bred,
Each softly lucent as a rounded moon;
The diver Omar plucked them from their bed,
FitzGerald strung them on an English thread.
“Whatever is well conceived is clearly said,
And the words to say it flow with ease.”
Ce que l'on conçoit bien s'énonce clairement,
Et les mots pour le dire arrivent aisément.
Canto I, l. 153
The Art of Poetry (1674)