A Better Understanding (from The West-East Divan)

He who poetry would know

Into poem-land must go;

He who would the poets know

Into poet-land must go.

So the West, as does the East,

Offers something pure to taste;

Shun the fancy, leave the waste,

Sit down to a splendid feast:

Not a moment should you wish

Disdain upon this glorious dish.

He who knows both self and other,

Here must grant acknowledgement:

No more can we part or sever

Orient and Occident.

So between two worlds, I grant it,

One may oscillate and swing,

Eastward, westward, fly enchanted—

That would be the finest thing!

Crossing Erfurt lately, I,

Who there oft perambulated,

Found that as in years gone by

I was warmly tolerated:

When the old folk give me greeting

From their humble homes, together,

Youth then seems to be repeating,

Which we’d sweetened for each other—

This one was the baker’s daughter,

Next to her, the cobbler-girl;

No owl the third, but something hotter;

That one made of life a whirl.

So our effort is incessant

To surpass Hafiz at last:

To be happy in the present,

And take pleasure in the past.

probably 1826