 | The poems of Richard Henry Stoddard |  |
[Let me a simple tale repeat]
Let me a simple tale repeat,As Sadi wrote it. Thus it ran:
His servants, at a hunting seat,
Were roasting game for Nushervan,
And, as they had no salt there, one
Was sent unto a village near
To fetch some. Ere the man could run,
The Sultan called him back. “Come here.
Take it at a fair price, and see
There is no force, lest there should be
A precedent established so,
Which might the village overthrow.”
400
From such a trifle. Whereupon
He answered: “When the race was new
Oppressions were but small and few;
But as the years went on and on
Every new comer added more,
And each was larger than before,
Till what was small had grown so great
It toppled o'er on many a State,
And crushed the people unto dust.
We must be just.” And from that day,
Sadi, I think, goes on to say,
They surnamed Nushervan the Just.
| The poems of Richard Henry Stoddard | |