page 91
O people of Persia! How long will your torpor
and lethargy last? You were once the lords
of the whole earth; the world was at your
beck and call. How is it that your glory has lapsed and
you have fallen from favor now, and crept away into
some corner of oblivion? You were the fountainhead of
learning, the unfailing spring of light for all the earth,
how is it that you are withered now, and quenched,
and faint of heart? You who once lit the world, how is
it that you lurk, inert, bemused, in darkness now?
Open your mind's eye, see your great and present need.
Rise up and struggle, seek education, seek enlightenment.
Is it meet that a foreign people should receive
from your own forbears its culture and its knowledge,
and that you, their blood, their rightful heirs, should
go without? How does it seem, when your neighbors