Classic Poem

The city of Herat
Has five great gates;
The Kandahar, the Hutab-chak,
The Malik and Irak;
And on the east the Kushk Gate,
Through which the sun came,
When Herat was a splendour
And not a ruin's name.

The city of Herat
Has four great walls,
For caravans and strange bazaars,
For mosques and tall minars,
For sepulchres of saints and khans
In gardens strewn with streams—
Whose names are now forgotten,
Or but as dreams of dreams.

The city of Herat
Is one mile square,
But one—yet all the bales of fate
Have entered in its every Gate,
Have crowded in its four walls
And gone the way of time;
And now Herat knows only
That it has been sublime.