“...I received [these poems] at the Hands of a Merchant, who had made it his Business to enrich himself with the Learning, as well as the Silks and Carpets of the Persians. The little Information I could gather concerning their Author, was, That his Name was Mahamed, and that he was a Native of Tauris.

It was in that City that he died of a Distemper fatal in those Parts, whilst he was engag’d in celebrating the Victories of his favourite Monarch, the Great Abbas. As to the Eclogues themselves, they give a very just View of the Miseries and Inconveniencies, as well as the Felicities, that attend one of the finest Countries in the East.

The Time of the Writing them was probably in the Beginning of the Sha Sultan Hosseyn’s Reign, the Successor of Sefi or Solyman the Second. Whatever Defects, as, I doubt not, there will be many, fall under the Reader’s Observation, I hope his Candour will incline him to make the following Reflections:
That the Works of Orientals contain many Peculiarities, and that thro’ Defect of Language few European Translators can do them Justice.”

--preface to William Collins’s Persian Eclogues (1742)

Listening to: The Electric Prunes- Just Good Old Rock and Roll

“Fragmentary Stars

So wide the wells of darkness sink,
These, having their own light, that are lost with the light,
Appear, immersed in mournfulness over the night,
Like things that in sleep will come to the mind’s brink:
The bright Aldebaran and seven that hover,
Seven wild and pale, clouding their brightness over;
And the flame that fell with summer, and the rose of stars returning,
Like tears piercing the sky,
Glittering without cause, for the piece of a legend,
Wept I know not why,
As none can say,
As countless they weep
Ranging without fold beyond the order of day--
The brightmost, the forgotten,
Gathered only of sleep,
All night upon the lids set burning,
Shaken from the lids of morning.”

--Léonie Adams