Inscription Translation

[[Persian text from Yusuf and Zulaykha written diagonally in the margin in nasta’liq script]] The seventh, fair as the seventh sphere-- / All words, all painting would fail me here-- / Forty gold pillars upheld, inlaid / With jewels, and beasts and birds portrayed. / Against each column a musk-deer leant, / And stored in the gold was the precious scent; / And peacocks wrought in pure gold displayed / Their jeweled plumes in the long colonnade. / But a special marvel, eclipsing them, / Was a shady tree with a silver stem. / Never a man might its like behold, / With leaves of turkis and boughs of gold. / On each branch was a bird, a wonder of skill, / With emerald wings and a ruby bill. // The painter there, to his orders true, / The forms of Zulaykha and Yusuf drew, / Like lovers both of one heart and mind, / With the arm of each round the other twined. / Like heaven was the ceiling, for wrought thereon / The sun and the moon in their glory shone. / In the prime of spring on the walls outspread / To the wondering view was a bright rose-bed, / And the eye might mark in each narrow space / The rose-sprays twined in a close embrace. / Wherever the foot on the carpet stepped / Two lovely roses together slept. / Search through the palace, no spot was there / But showed a type of that beauteous pair.