by Saadi, 13th-century Persian poet

If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft

And from thy slender store, two loaves alone are left,

Sell one, and with the dole

Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.

Read about this poem and versions or quotations of it by Ezra Pound and James Terry White in “Lost and Pound” by Daniel Swift in The Paris Review. And see also James Oppenheim’s poem, “Bread and Roses,” first published in The American Magazine in 1911, and set to music by Judy Collins in 1976.       +