Edward Powys Mathers (As Translator)

Although I shall not see his face For the low riding of the ship, The three armorial oak-leaves on his cloak

I made a bitter song When I was a boy, About a girl

I hide my love, I will not say her name. And yet since I confess

Under the leaves and cool flowers The wind brought me the sound of a flute From far away.

Joy fills my eyes, remembering your hair, with tears, And these tears roll and shine; Into my thoughts are woven a dark night with raindrops

I hear a woman singing in my garden, But I look at the moon in spite of her. I have no thought of trying to find the singer

The rain is due to fall, The wind blows softly. The branches of the cinnamon are moving,

Before you love, Learn to run through snow Leaving no footprint.

When I am cold and undesirous and my lids lie dead, Come to watch by the body that loved you and say: This is Rondagui, whom I killed and my heart regrets for ever.

Was one night, And that a night Without much sleep,

I have lacquered my teeth to find a husband. And I have need of a wife. Give me a kiss and they will marry us

One moment I place your two bright pearls against my robe, And the red silk mirrors a rose in each. Why did I not meet you before I married?

This night, Long like the drooping feathers Of the pheasant,

She was beautiful that evening and so gay.... In little games My hand had slipped her mantle,

In the fifth month, When orange-trees Fill all the world with scent,

Let the wind's breath Blow in the glades of the clouds Until they close;

Come to me to-day wearing your green collar, Make your two orange sleeves float in the air, and come to me. Touch your hair with essence and colour your clothes yellow;

A twist of fresh flowers on your dark hair, And your hair is a panther's shadow. On your white cheeks the down of a thousand roses,

She has put on her green robe, she has put on her double veil, my idol; My idol has come to me. She has put on her green robe, my love is a laughing flower;

Come in haste this dusk, dear child. I will be on the water path When your girl friends go laughing by the road. "Come in haste this dusk; I have become your nightingale,

When she appears the daylight envies her garment, The wanton daylight envies her garment To show it to the jealous sun.

Come, my beloved! And I say again: Come, my beloved! The doves are moaning and calling and will not cease. Come, my beloved!

Touch my hands with your fingers, yellow wallflower. Did God use a bluer paint Painting the sky for the gold sun

Brother, my thought of you In this letter on a palm-leaf Goes up about you

Lions tremble at my claws; And I at a gazelle with eyes. From the Turkish of Sultan Selim I.

Your face upon a drop of purple wine Shows like my soul poised on a bead of blood. From the Turkic of Hussein Baikrani.

The crows have wakened me By cawing at the moon. I pray that I shall not think of him;

Here are the doleful rains, And one would say the sky is weeping The death of the tolerable weather.

A love-sick heart dies when the heart is whole, For all the heart's health is to be sick with love. From the Hindustani of Miyan Jagnu (eighteenth century).

Ever your rose face or black curls are with Shaguil; Because your curls are night and your face is day. From the Hindustani of Shaguil (eighteenth century).

If you do not want your heart Burnt at a small flame Like a spitted sheep,

Beauty with the flame shawl, do not repulse me; Breathing idol of rose ivory, look at me; Beauty with the flame shawl, let me say a little thing,

Grief is hard upon me, Master, for she has left me; The black dust has covered my pretty one. My heart is black, for the tomb has taken my friend;

The world passes, nothing lasts, and the creation of men Is buried alive under the vault of Time. Autumn comes pillaging gardens;

The lover to his lass: I have fallen before your door. I came to ask for alms and have lost my all, I had a copper-shod quarter-staff but the dogs attacked me,

The world is fainting, And you will weep at last. The world is fainting

My heart is torn by the tyranny of women very quietly; Day and night my tears are wearing away my cheeks very quietly. Life is a red thing like the sun setting very quietly;

I am burning, I am crumbled into powder, I stand to the lips in a tossing sea of tears. Like a stone falling in Hamun lake I vanish;

To-day I saw Laila's breasts, the hills of a fair city From which my heart might leap to heaven. Her breasts are a garden of white roses

The season of parting has come up with the wind; My girl has hollowed my heart with the hot iron of separation. Keep away, doctor, your roots and your knives are useless.

I was gathering Leaves of the Wakana In springtime.

Tears in the moonlight, You know why, Have marred the flowers

Kill me if you will not love me. Here are flints; Ram down the heavy bullet, little leopard,

It is hard for a man to tell The hidden thought in his friend's heart, And the thought in a man's own heart

She is as wise as Hippocrates, As beautiful as Joseph, As sweet-voiced as David,

Young man, If you try to eat honey On the blade of a knife,

Not a stone from my black sling Ever misses anything, But the arrows of your eye

I asked my love: "Why do you make yourself so beautiful?" "To please myself. I am the eye, the mirror, and the loveliness;

Her hand tinted to gold with henna Gave me a cup of wine like gold water, And I said: The moon rise, the sun rise.

The women who were girls a long time ago Are sitting between the flower bushes And speaking softly together:

Reading in my book this cold night, I have forgotten to go to sleep. The perfumes have died on the gilded bed-cover;

I desire the door-sill of my beloved More than a king's house; I desire the shadow of the wall where her beauty hides

Head in hand, I look at the paper leaf; It is still white. I look at the ink

The chief flower Of the plum-tree of this isle Opens to-night....

Seeing that I adore you, Scarf of golden flowers, Why do you stay unmarried?

You know so well how to stay me with vapours Distilled expertly to that unworthy end; You know the poses of your body I love best

I shall never see your tired sleep In the bed that you make beautiful, Nor hardly ever be a dream

I have been at this shooting-gallery too long. It is monotonous how the little coloured balls Make up and down on their silvery water thread;

When you lie with me and love me, You give me a second life of young gold; And when you lie with me and love me not,

Ever at the far side of the current The fishes hurl and swim, For pelicans and great birds

Rise and hold up the curved glass, And pour us wine of the morning, of El Andar. Pour wine for us, whose golden colour

The poets have muddied all the little fountains. Yet do not my strong eyes know you, far house? O dwelling of Abla in the valley of Gawa,

Now that the wind has taught your veil to show your eyes and hair, All the world is bowing down to your dear head; Faith has crept away to die beside the tomb of prayer,

The great brightness of the burning of the stars, Little frightened love, Is like your eyes,

It is late at night And the North Star is shining. The mist covers the rice-fields

A mole shows black Between her mouth and cheek. As if a negro,

They put wild olive and acanthus up With tufts of yellow wool above the door When a man died in Greece and in Greek Islands,

Remembering what passed Under the scent of the plum-tree, I asked the plum-tree for tidings

Paradise, my darling, know that paradise, The Prophet-given paradise after death, Is far and very mysterious and most high;

Lonely rose out-splendouring legions of roses, How could the nightingales behold you and not sing? By Rustwell of Georgia (from the Tariel, twelfth century).

Day comes.... And when she sees the withering of the violet garden And the saffron garden flowering,

Your eyes are black like water-melon pips, Your lips are red like the red flesh of water-melons, Your loins are smooth like smooth-rind water-melons.

The sand is like acres of wet milk Poured out under the moonlight; It crawls up about your brown feet

See you have dancers and wine and a girl like one of the angels (If they exist), And find a clear stream singing near its birth and a bed of moss

As water runs in the river, so runs time; And ever my eyes are wasted of her presence. The red flowers of the second moon were yesterday;

I sit on a white wood box Smeared with the black name Of a seller of white sugar.

Do not believe that ink is always black, Or lime white, or lemon sour; You cannot ring one bell from two pagodas,

How can a heart play any more with life, After it has found a woman and known tears? In vain I shut my windows against the moonlight;

I have seen a pathway shaded by green great trees, A road bordered by thickets light with flowers. My eyes have entered in under the green shadow,

Old bamboos are about my house, And the floor of my house is untidy with old books. It is sweet to rest in the shade of it

My dreams are bubbles of cool light, Sunbeams mingled in the light green Waters of your bath.

In a life where the clocks Are slow or fast, It is a pleasant thing

Your arm should only be A spring night's dream; If I accepted it to rest my head upon

When she came she said: You know that your love is granted, Why is your heart trembling?

I dreamed that I was touching her eyelids, and I awoke To find her sleepy temples of rose jade For one heart-beat....

Softly into the saddle Of my black horse with white feet; Your brothers are frowning

I am the Gao flower high in a tree, You are the grass Long Mai on the path-side. When heat comes down after the dews of morning

I'm a girl of Ke-Mo village Selling my rice wine on the road. Mine is the strongest rice wine in the land,

She seemed so bored, I wanted to embrace her by surprise; But then the scalding waters

Fair journey, O holy swan with gold wings; O holy swan that I love, fair journey! Carry this letter for me to the new land,

The jade staircase is bright with dew. Slowly, this long night, the queen climbs, Letting her gauze stockings and her elaborate robe

Clear River twists nine times about Clear River; but so deep That none can see the green sand.

You are the drowned, Star that I found Washed on the rim of the sea

The Khan. The son of the Khan. The love of the son of the Khan.

The young lady shows like a thing of light In the shadowy deeps of a fair window Grown round with flowers.

My desires are like the white snows on Fuji That grow but never melt. I am becoming proud of my bad reputation;

(Ballade By Nur Uddin) I have seen a small proud face brimming with sunlight; I have seen the daughter of the King of Qulzum passing from grace to

Her hands are filled with what I lack, And on her arms are pictures, Looking like files of ants forsaking the battalions,

Roses are a wandering scent from heaven. Rose-seller, why do you sell your roses? For silver? But with the silver from your roses

I made search for you all my life, and when I found you There came a trouble on me, So that it seemed my blood escaped

At the head of a thousand roaring warriors, With the sound of gongs, My husband has departed

I am in love with a child dreaming at the window. Not for her elaborate house On the banks of Yellow River;

Clear diamond heart, I have been hunting death Among the swords.

Three sweet drivers hold the reins, And hold the places of my heart. A great people obeys me,

The greater and the lesser ills: He waved his grey hand wearily Back to the anger of the sea,

Lily of Streams lay by my side last night And to my prayers gave answers of delight; Day came before our fairy-tale was finished,

You have taken away my cloak, My cloak of weariness; Take my coat also,

Since there is excitement In suffering for a woman, Let him burn on.

Aischa was mine, My tender cousin, My blond lover;

Here is the wind in the morning; The kind red face of God Is looking over the hill

We have walked over the high grass under the wet trees To the gravel path beside the lake, we two. A noise of light-stepping shadows follows now

We were two green rushes by opposing banks, And the small stream ran between. Not till the water beat us down

Love starts with a little throb in the heart, And in the end one dies Like an ill-treated toy.

Why are your tears so white? Dear, I have wept so long That my old tears grow white like my old hair.

Winter scourges his horses Through the North, His hair is bitter snow

It rained last night, But fair weather has come back This morning.

The white frost covers all the arbute-trees, Like powder on the faces of women. Looking from window consider

You do not want me, Zohrah. Is it because I am maimed? Yet Tamour-leng was maimed,