Gardens of the Persian Poets
The writings of the early Persian poets, so full of evident delight in the flowers and gardens of their day, are well known in Europe: the Gulistans-rose gardens-of Sadi bloomed long ago-almost two hundred years before Chaucer's 'sweitie roses rede' scented the summer air. 'The Rose Garden' is the actual title of the poet Sadi's most famous work, and in his preface he writes:-
'Mature consideration as to the arrangements of the book made me deem it expedient that this delicate garden, and this densely wooded grove should, like Paradise, be divided into eight parts in order that it may become the less likely to fatigue.'
These eight parts or terraces, being taken from the Paradise-garden of the Koran, were always the ideal for the perfect garden. 'God Almighty first planted a garden,' and the early followers of the Prophet, stern materialists as they were, in spite of their poets, took their ideas of Paradise very literally from the gardens around them.
Hafiz is another sweet singer through whose songs the beauteous gardens of Shiraz are well known; and that great poet of East Persia, Omar Khayyam of Korassan, is more popular now, after the lapse of nearly eight centuries, than he was in his own time and country.
One of his pupils, Khwajah Nizami of Samarkand, relates how he often used to hold conversations with his teacher in a garden; and one day the master said to him, 'My tomb shall be in a spot where the north wind may scatter the roses over it'; and adds Khwajah Nizami, 'I wondered at the words he spoke, but I knew that his were no idle words. Years after, when I chanced to visit Naishapur, I went to his final resting-place, and lo ! it was just outside a garden, and trees laden with fruit stretched their boughs over the garden wall, and dropped their flowers upon his tomb, so that the stone was hidden under them.'
