The choice of friends - Saadi Shirazi

One balmy day in gentle June,

While sporting in my bath so free, 

In came a friend with perfumed clay,

And gave the fragrant mass to me.

Art thou of musk or ambergris?

Thou art like both: I cannot tell 

Whence comes the charm, but this I know,

I am delighted with thy smell.

"I was a piece of worthless clay

Until the blooming rose I knew; 

For by its side I drank delight,

And drank its heavenly fragrance too.

But for that rose I should be still

Mere worthless clay for idle ends; 

Learn well the lesson I impart —

Be careful in your choice of friends."

---

Saadi Shirazi [Abū-Muhammad Muslih al-Dīn bin Abdallāh Shīrāz] (1210 - 1292) Iran 

Translator not stated

Source: Flowers of song from many lands; being short poems and detached verses gathered from various languages and rendered into English, by Frederic Rowland Marvin, Pafraets Book Company, 1902