2 WISDOM OF THE EAST ABU'L ALA, THE SYRIAN BY HENRY BAERLEIN My sin is less than my fond hope They are so great, this hope and sin, But very small to thee. ISHAK BEN IBRAHIM, THE SINGER NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY 1914 1 In "The Diwan [that is to say, the selected poems] of Abu'l Ala " there was an endeavour to arrange a number of his thoughts in something that to us would seem a more or less connected whole, a philosophic whole, whatever it might seem to Orientals. Such of his poems, therefore, as were taken for that purpose were not necessarily the most beautiful nor the most profound. It would be strange if all the poems of a man such as Abu'l Ala, who wrote for many years, were always to illustrate his philosophy; and it would have been far stranger if we could have joined them all to their companions. We have here joined some of them to various kindred poems from other pens. 394312 |