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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Garden of Bright Waters, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Garden of Bright Waters
+ One Hundred and Twenty Asiatic Love Poems
+
+Author: Various
+
+Translator: Edward Powys Mathers
+
+Posting Date: December 11, 2011 [EBook #9920]
+Release Date: February, 2006
+First Posted: October 31, 2003
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GARDEN OF BRIGHT WATERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Susan Woodring, Tom Allen
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Garden Of Bright Waters
+
+One Hundred And Twenty Asiatic Love Poems
+
+
+Translated by Edward Powys Mathers
+
+1920
+
+
+
+
+Dedication: To My Wife
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+Head in hand, I look at the paper leaf;
+It is still white.
+
+I look at the ink
+Dry on the end of my brush.
+
+My soul sleeps.
+Will it ever wake?
+
+I walk a little in the pouring of the sun
+And pass my hands over the higher flowers.
+
+There is the soft green forest,
+There are the sweet lines of the mountains
+Carved with snow, red in the sunlight.
+
+I see the slow march of the clouds,
+I hear the crows jeering, and I come back
+
+To sit and look at the paper leaf,
+Which is still white
+Under my brush.
+
+_From the Chinese of Chang-Chi (770-850)._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+AFGHANISTAN (PUS'HTO)
+
+The Princess of Qulzum
+Come, my Beloved!
+Ballade of Muhammad Khan
+Ghazal of Tavakkul
+Ghazal of Sayyid Kamal
+Ghazal of Sayyid Ahmad
+Ghazal of Pir Muhammad
+Ballade of Nurshali
+Ghazal of Muhammad Din Tilai
+Micra
+Ballade of Muhammad Din Tilai
+Ghazal of Mira
+Ghazal of Majid Shah
+Ghazal of Mira
+Ballade of Ajam the Washerman
+Ghazal of Isa Akhun Zada
+
+
+ANNAM
+
+The Bamboo Garden
+Stranger Things have Happened
+Nocturne
+The Gao Flower
+The Girl of Ke-Mo
+The Little Woman of Clear River
+Waiting to Marry a Student
+A Song for Two
+
+
+ARABIC
+
+Sand
+Two Similes
+Melodian
+The Lost Lady
+Love Brown and Bitter
+Okhouan
+Lying Down Alone
+Old Greek Lovers
+Night and Morning
+In a Yellow Frame
+Because the Good are Never Fair
+White and Green and Black Tears
+A Conceit
+Values
+What Love Is
+The Dancing Heart
+The Great Offence
+An Escape
+Three Queens
+Her Nails
+Perturbation at Dawn
+The Resurrection of the Tattooed Girl
+Moallaka of Antar
+Moallaka of Amr Ebn Kultum
+
+
+BALUCHISTAN
+
+Comparisons
+
+
+BURMA
+
+A Canker in the Heart
+
+
+CAMBODIA
+
+Disquiet
+
+
+CAUCASUS
+
+Vengeance
+The Flight
+
+
+CHINA
+
+We were Two Green Rushes
+Song Writer Paid with Air
+The Bad Road
+The Western Window
+In Lukewarm Weather
+Written on White Frost
+A Flute of Marvel
+The Willow-Leaf
+A Poet Looks at the Moon
+We Two in a Park at Night
+The Jade Staircase
+The Morning Shower
+A Virtuous Wife
+Written on a Wall in Spring
+A Poet Thinks
+In the Cold Night
+
+
+DAGHESTAN
+
+Winter Comes
+
+
+GEORGIA
+
+Part of a Ghazal
+
+
+HINDUSTAN
+
+Fard
+Incurable
+A Poem
+Fard
+Mortification
+Fard
+
+
+JAPAN
+
+Grief and the Sleeve
+Drink Song
+A Boat Comes In
+The Opinion of Men
+Old Scent of the Plum-tree
+An Orange Sleeve
+Invitation
+The Clocks of Death
+Green Food for a Queen
+The Cushion
+A Single Night
+At a Dance of Girls
+Alone One Night
+
+
+KAFIRISTAN
+
+Walking up a Hill at Dawn
+Proposal of Marriage
+
+
+KAZACKS
+
+You do not Want Me, Zohrah
+
+
+KOREA
+
+Tears
+The Dream
+Separation
+
+
+KURDISTAN
+
+Paradise
+
+
+LAOS
+
+Misadventure
+Khap-Salung
+The Holy Swan
+
+
+MANCHURIA
+
+Fire and Love
+Hearts of Women
+
+
+
+PERSIA
+
+To His Love instead of a Promised Picture Book
+Too Short a Night
+The Roses
+I Asked my Love
+A Request
+See You Have Dancers
+
+
+SIAM
+
+The Sighing Heart
+
+
+SYRIA
+
+Handing over the Gun
+
+
+TATARS
+
+Honey
+
+
+THIBET
+
+The Love of the Archer Prince
+
+
+TURKESTAN
+
+Distich
+Things Seen in Battle
+Hunter's Song
+
+
+TURKEY
+
+The Bath
+Distich
+A Proverb
+
+
+ENVOY IN AUTUMN
+
+
+TRANSLATOR'S NOTES
+
+
+
+
+THE GARDEN OF BRIGHT WATERS
+
+
+
+
+_AFGHANISTAN_
+
+
+
+THE PRINCESS OF QULZUM
+(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
+ grace.
+Yesterday she threw her bed on the floor of her double house
+And laughed with a thousand graces.
+She has a little pearl and coral cap
+And rides in a palanquin with servants about her
+And claps her hands, being too proud to call.
+I have seen a small proud face brimming with sunlight.
+
+"My palanquin is truly green and blue;
+I fill the world with pomp and take my pleasure;
+I make men run up and down before me,
+And am not as young a girl as you pretend.
+I am of Iran, of a powerful house, I am pure steel.
+I hear that I am spoken of in Lahore."
+I have seen a small proud face brimming with sunlight.
+
+I also hear that they speak of you in Lahore,
+You walk with a joyous step,
+Your nails are red and the palms of your hands are rosy.
+A pear-tree with a fresh stem is in your palace gardens,
+I would not that your mother should give my pear-tree
+To twine with an evil spice-tree or fool banana.
+I have seen a small proud face brimming with sunlight.
+
+"The coins that my father gave me for my forehead
+Throw rays and light the hearts of far men;
+The ray of light from my red ring is sharper than a diamond.
+I go about and about in pride as of hemp wine
+And my words are chosen.
+But I give you my honey cheeks, dear, I trust them to you."
+I have seen a small proud face brimming with sunlight.
+
+The words of my mouth are coloured and shining things;
+And two great saints are my perpetual guards.
+There is never a song of _Nur Uddin_ but has in it a great achievement
+And is as brilliant as a young hyacinth;
+I pour a ray of honey on my disciples,
+There is as it were a fire in my ballades.
+I have seen a small proud face brimming with sunlight.
+
+_From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century)._
+
+
+
+COME, MY BELOVED!
+
+Come, my beloved! And I say again: Come, my beloved!
+The doves are moaning and calling and will not cease.
+ Come, my beloved!
+
+"The fairies have made me queen, and my heart is love.
+Sweeter than the green cane is my red mouth."
+ Come, my beloved!
+
+The jacinth has spilled odour on your hair,
+The balance of your neck is like a jacinth;
+You have set a star of green between your brows.
+ Come, my beloved!
+
+Like lemon-trees among the rocks of grey hills
+Are the soft colours of the airy veil
+To your rose knee from your curved almond waist.
+ Come, my beloved!
+
+Your light breast veil is tawny brown with stags,
+Stags with eyes of emerald, hunted by red kings.
+ Come, my beloved!
+
+_Muhammad Din_ is wandering; he is drunken and mad;
+For a year he has been dying. Send for the doctor!
+ Come, my beloved!
+
+_From the Pus'hto of Muhammad Din Tilai (Afghans, nineteenth
+century)._
+
+
+
+BALLADE OF MUHAMMAD KHAN
+
+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;
+Gently, gently she comes, she is a young rose, she has come out of the
+ garden.
+
+Gently she has shown her face, parting her veil, my idol;
+My idol has come to me.
+She has put on her green robe, my love is a young rose for me to
+ break.
+Her chin has the smooth colour of peaches and she guards it well;
+She is the daughter of a Moghol house and well they guard her.
+
+She put on her red jewels when she came with a noise of rings, my
+ idol;
+My idol has come to me.
+She has put on her green robe, my love is the stem of a rose;
+She breaks not, she is strong.
+She has a throne, but comes into the woods for love.
+
+I was well and she troubled me when she came to me in the evening, my
+ idol;
+My idol has come to me.
+She has put on her green robe, her wrist is a sword.
+The villages speak of her; the child is as fair as Badri.
+She has red lips and six hundred and fifty beads upon her light blue
+ scarf.
+Give your garland to _Muhammad Khan_, my idol;
+My idol has come to me.
+
+_From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century)._
+
+
+
+GHAZAL OF TAVAKKUL
+
+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
+Having two drifted hills of fallen rose-leaves.
+
+Her breasts are a garden where doves are singing
+And doves are moaning with arrows because of her.
+
+All her body is a flower and her face is Shalibagh;
+She has fruits of beautiful colours and the doves abide there.
+
+Over the garden of her breasts she combs the gold rain of her hair....
+You have killed _Tavakkul_, the faithful pupil of Abdel Qadir Gilani.
+
+_From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century)._
+
+
+
+GHAZAL OF SAYYID KAMAL
+
+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;
+I return no more, I am counted among the dead.
+
+I am consumed like yellow straw on red flames;
+You have drawn a poisoned sword along my throat to-day.
+
+People have come to see me from far towns,
+Great and small, arriving with bare heads,
+For I have become one of the great historical lovers.
+
+In the desire of your red lips
+My heart has become a red kiln, like a terrace of roses.
+It is because she does not trouble about the bee on the rose
+That my heart is taken.
+
+"I have blackened my eyes to kill you, _Sayyid Kamal_.
+I kill you with my eyelids; I am Natarsa, the Panjabie, the pitiless."
+
+_From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century)._
+
+
+
+GHAZAL OF SAYYID AHMAD
+
+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;
+Setting quickly and heavily and very quietly.
+
+If you are to buy heaven by a good deed, to-day the market is open;
+To-morrow is a day when no man buys,
+And the caravan is broken up very quietly.
+
+The kings are laughing and the slaves are laughing; but for your sake
+_Sayyid Ahmad_ is walking and mourning very quietly.
+
+_From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century)._
+
+
+
+GHAZAL, IN LAMENT FOR THE DEAD, OF PIR MUHAMMAD
+
+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.
+None ever cured the ills of the ill of separation.
+
+There is no one near me noble enough to be told;
+I tear my collar in the "Alas! Alas!" of separation.
+
+She was a branch of santal; she closed her eyes and left me.
+Autumn has come and she has gone, broken to pieces in the wind of
+ separation.
+
+I am _Pir Muhammad_ and I am stumbling away to die;
+She stamped on my eyes with the foot of separation.
+
+_From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century)._
+
+
+
+BALLADE OF NURSHALI
+
+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,
+And the young girls leave me alone because of you.
+I give you the poppy of my mouth and my fallen hair."
+ Come in haste this dusk, dear child.
+
+"I have dishevelled and spread out my hair for you;
+Take my wrist, for there is no shame
+And my father has gone out.
+Sit near me on this red bed quietly."
+ Come in haste this dusk, dear child.
+
+"Sit near me on this red bed, I lift the poppy to your lips;
+Your hand is strong upon my breast;
+My beauty is a garden and you the bird in the flowering tree."
+ Come in haste this dusk, dear child.
+
+"My beauty is a garden with crimson flowers."
+But I cannot reach over the thicket of your hair.
+This is _Nurshali_ sighing for the garden;
+ Come in haste this dusk, dear child.
+
+_From the Pus'hto (Afghans)._
+
+
+
+GHAZAL OF MUHAMMAD DIN TILAI
+
+The world is fainting,
+And you will weep at last.
+
+The world is fainting
+And falling into a swoon.
+
+The world is turning and changing;
+The world is fainting,
+And you will weep at last.
+
+Look at the love of Farhad, who pierced a mountain
+And pierced a brass hill for the love of Shirin.
+The world is fainting,
+And you will weep at last.
+
+Qutab Khan of the Ranizais was in love
+And death became the hostess of his lady.
+The world is fainting,
+And you will weep at last.
+
+Adam loved Durkho, and they were separated.
+You know the story;
+There is no lasting love.
+The world is fainting,
+And you will weep at last.
+
+_Muhammad Din_ is ill for the matter of a little honey;
+This is a moment to be generous.
+The world is fainting,
+And you will weep at last.
+
+_From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century)._
+
+
+
+MICRA
+
+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,
+I am as one who puts out hands in the dark
+And touches cold wet death.
+
+_From the Pus'hto of Mirza Rahchan Kayil (Afghans, nineteenth century)._
+
+
+
+BALLADE OF MUHAMMAD DIN TILAI
+
+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,
+They speak about your beauty in Lahore.
+You have your mother's lips;
+Your ring is frosted with rubies,
+And your hair is a panther's shadow.
+
+Your ring is frosted with rubies;
+I was unhappy and you looked over the wall,
+I saw your face among the crimson lilies;
+There is no armour that a lover can buy,
+And your hair is a panther's shadow.
+
+"The cool fingers of the mistress burn her lovers
+And they go away.
+I have fatigued the wise of many lands,
+And my hair is a tangle of serpents.
+What is the profit of these shawls without you?
+And my hair is a panther's shadow."
+
+"A squadron of my father's men are about me,
+And I have woven a collar of yellow flowers.
+My eyes are veiled because I drink cups of bhang,
+Being a daughter of the daughter of queens.
+You cannot touch me because of my palaces,
+And my hair is a panther's shadow."
+
+I will touch you, though your beauty be as fair as song;
+For I am a disciple of Abdel Qadir Gilani,
+And my songs are as beautiful as women and as strong as love;
+And your hair is a panther's shadow.
+
+Your ring is frosted with rubies....
+_Muhammad Din_ awaits the parting of your scarves;
+_Tilai_ is standing here, young and magnificent like a tree;
+And your hair is a panther's shadow.
+
+_From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century)._
+
+
+
+GHAZAL OF MIRA
+
+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,
+And not a strand of her hair came the way of my lips.
+The lover to his lass: I have fallen before your door.
+
+The lamp burns and I must play the green moth.
+I have stolen her scented rope of flowers,
+But the women caught me and built a little gaol
+About my heart with your old playthings.
+The lover to his lass: I have fallen before your door.
+
+_Mira_ is a mountain goat that climbs to die
+Upon the top peak in the rocks of grief;
+It is the hour; make haste.
+The lover to his lass: I have fallen before your door.
+
+_From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century)._
+
+
+
+GHAZAL OF MAJID SHAH
+
+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;
+How pleasantly would go the days if my friend were here.
+
+I can only dream of the stature of my friend;
+The flowers are dying in my heart, my breast is a fading garden.
+
+Her breast is a sweet garden now, and her garments are gold flowers;
+I am an orchard at night, for my friend has gone a journey.
+
+I am _Majid Shah_, a slave that ministers to the dead;
+Abdel Qadir Gilani, even the Master, shall not save me.
+
+_From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century)._
+
+
+
+GHAZAL OF MIRA
+
+The world passes, nothing lasts, and the creation of men
+Is buried alive under the vault of Time.
+
+Autumn comes pillaging gardens;
+The bulbuls laugh to see the flowers falling.
+
+Wars start up wherever your eye glances,
+And the young men moan marching on to the batteries.
+
+_Mira_ is the unkempt old man you see on the road;
+He has taken his death-wound in battle.
+
+
+_From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century)._
+
+
+
+BALLADE OF AJAM THE WASHERMAN
+
+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;
+The deer of reason has fled from the hill of my heart;
+Come to me.
+
+The deer of reason has fled from the hill of my heart
+Because I have seen your gold rings and your amber rings;
+Your eyes have lighted a small fire below my heart,
+Put on your gold rings and your amber rings, and come to me.
+
+Put on your gold rings and your amber rings, and you will be more
+ beautiful
+Than the brown girls of poets and the milk-white wives of kings.
+The coil of your hair is like a hangman's rope;
+But press me to your green collar between your orange sleeves.
+
+Press me to your green collar between your orange sleeves,
+And give yourself once to _Ajam_. Slip away weeping,
+Slip weeping away from the house of the wicked, and come to me.
+Come to me to-day wearing your green collar,
+Make your two orange sleeves float in the air and come to me.
+
+_From the Pus'hto (Afghans)._
+
+
+
+GHAZAL OF ISA AKHUN ZADA
+
+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,
+Lend your small ears to my quick sighing.
+Breathing idol, I have come to the walls of death;
+And there are coloured cures behind the crystal of your eyes.
+Life is a tale ill constructed without love.
+Beauty of the flame shawl, do not repulse me;
+I am at your door wasted and white and dying.
+Breathing idol of rose ivory, look at me;
+Beauty with the flame shawl, do not repulse me.
+
+This is the salaam that slaves make, and after the salaam
+Listen to these quick sighings and their wisdom.
+All the world has spied on us and seen our love,
+And in four days or five days will be whispering evil.
+Knot your robes in a turban, escape and be mine for ever;
+Beauty with the flame shawl, do not repulse me.
+After that we will both of us go to prison.
+Breathing idol of rose ivory, look at me;
+Beauty with the flame shawl, do not repulse me.
+
+My quick sighings carry a tender promise;
+I will have time to remember in the battle,
+Though all the world is a thousand whistling swords against me.
+The iron is still in the rock that shall forge my death-sword,
+Though I have foes more than the stars
+Of a thousand valley starlights.
+Breathing idol of rose ivory, look at me;
+Beauty with the flame shawl, do not repulse me.
+
+I am as strong as Sikander, I am as strong as death;
+You will hear me come with guns brooding behind me,
+And laughing bloody battalions following after.
+_Isa Gal_ is stronger than God;
+Do not whip me, do not whip me,
+Beauty with the flame shawl, do not repulse me;
+Breathing idol of rose ivory, look at me.
+Breathing idol of rose ivory, look at me;
+Beauty with the flame shawl, do not repulse me.
+
+_From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century)._
+
+
+
+
+_ANNAM_
+
+
+
+THE BAMBOO GARDEN
+
+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
+And read the poems of the masters.
+
+But I remember a delightful fisherman
+Who played on the five-stringed dan in the evening.
+In the day he allowed his reed canoe to float
+Over the lakes and rivers,
+Watching his nets and singing.
+
+A sweet boy promised to marry me,
+But he went away and left
+Like a reed canoe that rolls adrift
+In the middle of a river.
+
+_Song of Annam._
+
+
+
+STRANGER THINGS HAVE HAPPENED
+
+Do not believe that ink is always black,
+ Or lime white, or lemon sour;
+You cannot ring one bell from two pagodas,
+You cannot have two governors for the city of Lang Son.
+ I found you binding an orange spray
+ Of flowers with white flowers;
+ I never noticed the flower gathering
+ Of other village ladies.
+Would you like me to go and see your father and mother?
+
+_Song of Annam._
+
+
+
+NOCTURNE
+
+It is late at night
+And the North Star is shining.
+The mist covers the rice-fields
+And the bamboos
+Are whispering full of crickets.
+The watch beats on the iron-wood gong,
+And priests are ringing the pagoda bells.
+We hear the far-away games of peasants
+And distant singing in the cottages.
+
+It is late at night.
+As we talk gently,
+Sitting by one another,
+Life is as beautiful as night.
+The red moon is rising
+On the mountain side
+Like a fire started among the trees.
+There is the North Star
+Shining like a paper lantern.
+The light air brings dew to our faces
+And the sound of tamtams beaten far away.
+Let us sit like this all night.
+
+_Song of Annam._
+
+
+
+THE GAO FLOWER
+
+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
+The flower grows pale and tumbles on the grass,
+The grass Long Mai that keeps the fallen Gao.
+
+Folk who let their daughters grow
+Without achieving a husband
+Might easily forget to fence their garden,
+Or let their radishes grow flower and rank
+When they could eat them ripe and tender.
+
+Come to me, you that I see walk
+Every night in a red turban;
+Young man with the white turban, come to me.
+We will plant marrows together in a garden,
+And there may be little marrows for your children.
+
+I will dye your turban blue and red and yellow,
+You with the white turban.
+You that are passing with a load of water,
+I call you
+And you do not even turn your head.
+
+_Song of Annam._
+
+
+
+THE GIRL OF KE-MO
+
+I'm a girl of Ke-Mo village
+Selling my rice wine on the road.
+Mine is the strongest rice wine in the land,
+Though my bottle is so patched and dirty.
+These silly rags are not my body,
+The parts you cannot see are counted pleasant;
+But you are just too drunk to drink my wine,
+And just too plain to lie down on my mat.
+He who would drink the wine of the girl of Ke-Mo
+Needs a beautiful body and a lofty wit.
+
+_Song of Annam._
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE WOMAN OF CLEAR RIVER
+
+Clear River twists nine times about
+Clear River; but so deep
+That none can see the green sand.
+You hear the birds about Clear River:
+Dik, dik, dik, dik, Diu dik.
+
+A little woman with jade eyes
+Leans on the wall of a pavilion.
+She has the moonrise in her heart
+And the singing of love songs
+Comes to her up the river.
+
+She stands and dreams for me
+Outside the house by the bamboo door.
+In a minute
+I will leave my shadow
+And talk to her of poetry and love.
+
+_Song of Annam._
+
+
+
+WAITING TO MARRY A STUDENT
+
+I still walk slowly on the river bank
+Where I came singing,
+And where I saw your boat pass up beyond the sun
+Setting red in the river.
+I want Autumn,
+I want the leaves to begin falling at once,
+So that the cold time may bring us close again
+Like K'ien Niue and Chik Nue, the two stars.
+
+Each year when Autumn comes
+The crows make a black bridge across the milky sea,
+And then these two poor stars
+Can run together in gold and be at peace.
+Darling, for my sake work hard
+And be received with honour at the Examinations.
+
+Since I saw your boat pass up beyond the sun
+I have forgotten how to sing
+And how to paddle the canoe across the lake.
+I know how to sit down and how to be sad,
+And I know how to say nothing;
+But every other art has slipped away.
+
+_Song of Annam._
+
+
+
+A SONG FOR TWO
+
+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
+At Mo-Lao, my village.
+
+I will marry you if you will wait for me,
+Wait till the banana puts forth branches,
+And fruit hangs heavy on the Sung-tree,
+And the onion flowers;
+Wait till the dove goes down in the pool to lay her eggs,
+And the eel climbs into a tree to make her nest.
+
+_Song of Annam._
+
+
+
+
+_ARABIC_
+
+
+
+SAND
+
+The sand is like acres of wet milk
+Poured out under the moonlight;
+It crawls up about your brown feet
+Like wine trodden from white stars.
+
+_From the Arabic of John Duncan._
+
+
+
+TWO SIMILES
+
+You have taken away my cloak,
+My cloak of weariness;
+Take my coat also,
+My many-coloured coat of life....
+
+On this great nursery floor
+I had three toys,
+A bright and varnished vow,
+A Speckled Monster, best of boys,
+True friend to me, and more
+Beloved and a thing of cost,
+My doll painted like life; and now
+One is broken and two are lost.
+
+_From the Arabic of John Duncan._
+
+
+
+MELODIAN
+
+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;
+It would be pleasant to have money and go instead
+To watch your greasy audience in the threepenny stalls
+Of the World-famous Caravan of Dance and Song.
+
+And I want to go out beyond the turf fires there,
+After I've looked at your just smiling face,
+To that untented silent dark blue nighted place;
+And wait such time as you will wish the noise all dumb
+And drop your fairings and leave the funny man, and come ...
+You have the most understanding face in all the fair.
+
+_From the Arabic of John Duncan._
+
+
+
+THE LOST LADY
+
+You are the drowned,
+Star that I found
+Washed on the rim of the sea
+Before the morning.
+You are the little dying light
+That stopped me in the night.
+
+_From the Arabic of John Duncan._
+
+
+
+LOVE BROWN AND BITTER
+
+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
+And that I am cheerful with your head on my breast,
+You know you please me by disliking one friend;
+You read up what amuses me in the papers.
+
+Who knows me knows I am not of those fools
+That gets tired of a woman who is kind to them,
+Yet you know not how stifled you render me
+By learning me so well, how I long to see
+An unpractised girl under your clever phlegm,
+A soul not so letter-perfect in the rules.
+
+_From the Arabic of John Duncan._
+
+
+
+OKHOUAN
+
+A mole shows black
+Between her mouth and cheek.
+
+As if a negro,
+Coming into a garden,
+Wavered between a purple rose
+And a scarlet camomile.
+
+_From the Arabic._
+
+
+
+LYING DOWN ALONE
+
+I shall never see your tired sleep
+In the bed that you make beautiful,
+Nor hardly ever be a dream
+That plays by your dark hair;
+Yet I think I know your turning sigh
+And your trusting arm's abandonment,
+For they are the picture of my night,
+My night that does not end.
+
+_From the Arabic of John Duncan._
+
+
+
+OLD GREEK LOVERS
+
+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,
+ Grey stone by the blue sea,
+Or sage-green trees down to the water's edge.
+ How many clanging years ago
+ I, also withering into death, sat with him,
+ Old man of so white hair who only,
+ Only looked past me into the red fire.
+At last his words were all a jumble of plum-trees
+And white boys smelling of the sea's green wine
+And practice of his lyre. Suddenly
+ The bleak resurgent mind
+Called wonderfully clear: "What mark have I left?"
+ Crying girls with wine and linen
+Washed the straight old body and wrapped up,
+ And set the doorward feet.
+Later for me also under Greek sun
+The pendant leaves in green and bitter flakes
+Blew out to join the wastage of the world,
+And wool, I take it, in the nests of birds.
+
+_From the Arabic of John Duncan._
+
+
+
+NIGHT AND MORNING
+
+The great brightness of the burning of the stars,
+Little frightened love,
+Is like your eyes,
+When in the heavy dusk
+You question the dark blue shadows,
+Fearing an evil.
+
+Below the night
+The one clear line of dawn;
+As it were your head
+Where there is one golden hair
+Though your hair is very brown.
+
+_From the Arabic (School of Ebn-el-Moattaz) (ninth century)._
+
+
+
+IN A YELLOW FRAME
+
+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.
+
+_From the Arabic of Hefny-bey-Nassif (contemporary)._
+
+
+
+BECAUSE THE GOOD ARE NEVER FAIR
+
+When she appears the daylight envies her garment,
+The wanton daylight envies her garment
+To show it to the jealous sun.
+
+And when she walks,
+All women tall and tiny
+Want her figure and start crying.
+
+Because of your mouth,
+Long life to the Agata valley,
+Long life to pearls.
+
+Watchers have discovered paradise in your cheeks,
+But I am undecided,
+For there is a hint of the tops of flames
+In their purple shining.
+
+_From the Arabic of Ahmed Bey Chawky (contemporary)._
+
+
+
+WHITE AND GREEN AND BLACK TEARS
+
+Why are your tears so white?
+Dear, I have wept so long
+That my old tears grow white like my old hair.
+
+Why are your tears so green?
+Dear, the waters are wept away
+And the green gall is flowing.
+
+Why are your tears so black?
+Dear, the weeping is over
+And the black flash you loved is breaking.
+
+_From the Arabic (School of Ebn-el-Farid) (thirteenth century)._
+
+
+
+A CONCEIT
+
+I hide my love,
+I will not say her name.
+And yet since I confess
+I love, her name is told.
+You know that if I love
+It must be ... Whom?
+
+_From the Arabic of Ebn Kalakis Abu El Fath Nasrallah (eleventh century)._
+
+
+
+VALUES
+
+Since there is excitement
+In suffering for a woman,
+Let him burn on.
+The dust in a wolf's eyes
+Is balm of flowers to the wolf
+When a flock of sheep has raised it.
+
+_From the Arabic._
+
+
+
+WHAT LOVE IS
+
+Love starts with a little throb in the heart,
+And in the end one dies
+Like an ill-treated toy.
+Love is born in a look or in four words,
+The little spark that burnt the whole house.
+Love is at first a look,
+And then a smile,
+And then a word,
+And then a promise,
+And then a meeting of two among flowers.
+
+_From the Arabic._
+
+
+
+THE DANCING HEART
+
+When she came she said:
+You know that your love is granted,
+Why is your heart trembling?
+
+And I:
+You are bringing joy for my heart
+And so my heart is dancing.
+
+_From the Arabic of Urak El Hutail._
+
+
+
+THE GREAT OFFENCE
+
+She seemed so bored,
+I wanted to embrace her by surprise;
+But then the scalding waters
+Fell from her eyes and burnt her roses.
+
+I offered her a cup....
+
+And came to paradise....
+
+Ah, sorrow,
+When she rose from the waves of wine
+I thought she would have killed me
+With the swords of her desolation....
+
+Especially as I had tied her girdle
+With the wrong bow.
+
+_From the Arabic of Abu Nuas (eighth century)._
+
+
+
+AN ESCAPE
+
+She was beautiful that evening and so gay....
+
+In little games
+My hand had slipped her mantle,
+I am not sure
+About her skirts.
+
+Then in the night's curtain of shadows,
+Heavy and discreet,
+I asked and she replied:
+To-morrow.
+
+Next day I came
+Saying, Remember.
+
+Words of a night, she said, to bring the day.
+
+_From the Arabic of Abu Nuas (eighth century)._
+
+
+
+THREE QUEENS
+
+Three sweet drivers hold the reins,
+And hold the places of my heart.
+A great people obeys me,
+But these three obey me not.
+Am I then a lesser king than love?
+
+_From the Arabic of Haroun El Raschid (eighth century)._
+
+
+
+HER NAILS
+
+She is as wise as Hippocrates,
+As beautiful as Joseph,
+As sweet-voiced as David,
+As pure as Mary.
+
+I am as sad as Jacob,
+As lonely as Jonah,
+As patient as Job,
+As unfortunate as Adam.
+
+When I met her again
+And saw her nails
+Prettily purpled,
+I reproached her for making up
+When I was not there.
+
+She told me gently
+That she was no coquette,
+But had wept tears of blood
+Because I was not there,
+And maybe she had dried her eyes
+With her little hands.
+
+I would like to have wept before she wept;
+But she wept first
+And has the better love.
+Her eyes are long eyes,
+And her brows are the bows of subtle strong men.
+
+_From the Arabic of Yazid Ebn Moauia (seventh century)._
+
+
+
+PERTURBATION AT DAWN
+
+Day comes....
+
+And when she sees the withering of the violet garden
+And the saffron garden flowering,
+The stars escaping on their black horse
+And dawn on her white horse arriving,
+She is afraid.
+
+Against the sighing of her frightened breasts
+She puts her hand;
+I see what I have never seen,
+Five perfect lines on a crystal leaf
+Written with coral pens.
+
+_From the Arabic of Ebn Maatuk (seventeenth century)._
+
+
+
+THE RESURRECTION OF THE TATTOOED GIRL
+
+Her hands are filled with what I lack,
+And on her arms are pictures,
+Looking like files of ants forsaking the battalions,
+Or hail inlaid by broken clouds on green lawns.
+
+She fears the arrows of her proper eyes
+And has her hands in armour.
+
+She has stretched her hands in a cup to me,
+Begging for my heart.
+She has circled me with the black magic of her brows
+And shot small arrows at me.
+
+The black curl that lies upon her temple
+Is a scorpion pointing his needle at the stars.
+
+Her eyes seem tight, tight shut;
+But I believe she is awake.
+
+_From the Arabic of Yazid Ebn Moauia (seventh century)._
+
+
+
+MOALLAKA
+
+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,
+Speak to me, for my camel and I salute you.
+
+My camel is as tall as a tower, and I make him stand
+And give my aching heart to the wind of the desert.
+
+O erstwhile dwelling of Abla in the valley of Gawa;
+And my tribe in the valleys of Hazn and Samna
+And in the valley of Motethalem!
+
+Salute to the old ruins, the lonely ruins
+Since Oum El Aythan gathered and went away.
+
+Now is the dwelling of Abla
+In a valley of men who roar like lions.
+It will be hard to come to you, O daughter of Makhram.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+Abla is a green rush
+That feeds beside the water.
+
+But they have taken her to Oneiza
+And my tribe feeds in lazy Ghailam valley.
+
+They fixed the going, and the camels
+Waked in the night and evilly prepared.
+
+I was afraid when I saw the camels
+Standing ready among the tents
+And eating grain to make them swift.
+
+I counted forty-two milk camels,
+Black as the wings of a black crow.
+
+White and purple are the lilies of the valley,
+But Abla is a branch of flowers.
+
+Who will guide me to the dwelling of Abla?
+
+_From the Arabic of Antar (late sixth and early seventh centuries)._
+
+
+
+MOALLAKA
+
+Rise and hold up the curved glass,
+And pour us wine of the morning, of El Andar.
+
+Pour wine for us, whose golden colour
+Is like a water stream kissing flowers of saffron.
+
+Pour us wine to make us generous
+And carelessly happy in the old way.
+
+Pour us wine that gives the miser
+A sumptuous generosity and disregard.
+
+O Oum-Amr, you have prevented me from the cup
+When it should have been moving to the right;
+And yet the one of us three that you would not serve
+Is not the least worthy.
+
+How many cups have I not emptied at Balbek,
+And emptied at Damas and emptied at Cacerin!
+
+More cups! more cups! for death will have his day;
+His are we and he ours.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+By herself she is fearless
+And gives her arms to the air,
+The limbs of a long camel that has not borne.
+
+She gives the air her breasts,
+Unfingered ivory.
+
+She gives the air her long self and her curved self,
+And hips so round and heavy that they are tired.
+
+All these noble abundances of girlhood
+Make the doors divinely narrow and myself insane.
+
+Columns of marble and ivory in the old way,
+And anklets chinking in gold and musical bracelets.
+
+Without her I am a she-camel that has lost,
+And howls in the sand at night.
+
+Without her I am as sad as an old mother
+Hearing of the death of her many sons.
+
+_From the Arabic of Amr Ebn Kultum (seventh century)._
+
+
+
+
+_BALUCHISTAN_
+
+
+
+COMPARISONS
+
+Touch my hands with your fingers, yellow wallflower.
+Did God use a bluer paint
+Painting the sky for the gold sun
+Or making the sea about your two black stars?
+
+Treasure the touches of my fingers.
+God did not spread his bluest paint
+On a hollow sky or a girl's eye,
+But on a topaz chain, from you to me.
+
+Touch my temples with your fingers, scarlet rose.
+Did God use a stronger light
+When He fashioned and dropped the sun into the sky
+Or dropped your black stars into their blue sea?
+
+Treasure the touches of my fingers.
+God did not spend His strongest light
+On a sun above or a look of love,
+But on a round gold ring, from you to me.
+
+Touch my cheeks with your fingers, blue hyacinth.
+Did God use a whiter silk
+Weaving the veil for your fevered roses,
+Or spinning the moon that lies across your face?
+
+Treasure the touches of my fingers.
+God did not waste His whitest web
+On veils of silk or moons of milk,
+But on a marriage cap, from you to me.
+
+_Popular Song of Baluchistan._
+
+
+
+
+_BURMA_
+
+
+
+A CANKER IN THE HEART
+
+I made a bitter song
+When I was a boy,
+About a girl
+With hot earth-coloured hair,
+Who lived with me
+And left me.
+
+I made a sour song
+On her marriage-day,
+That ever his kisses
+Would be ghosts of mine,
+And ever the measure
+Of his halting love
+Flow to my music.
+
+It was a silly song,
+Dear wife with cool black hair,
+And yet when I recall
+(At night with you asleep)
+That once you gave yourself
+Before we met,
+I do not quite well know
+What song to make.
+
+_From the Burmese (nineteenth century) (? by Asmapur)._
+
+
+
+
+_CAMBODIA_
+
+
+
+DISQUIET
+
+Brother, my thought of you
+In this letter on a palm-leaf
+Goes up about you
+As her own scent
+Goes up about the rose.
+
+The bracelets on my arms
+Have grown too large
+Because you went away.
+
+I think the sun of love
+Melted the snow of parting,
+For the white river of tears has overflowed.
+
+But though I am sad
+I am still beautiful,
+The girl that you desired
+In April.
+
+Brother, my love for you
+In this letter on a palm-leaf
+Brightens about you
+As her own rays
+Brighten about the moon.
+
+_Love Poem of Cambodia._
+
+
+
+
+_CAUCASUS_
+
+
+
+VENGEANCE
+
+Aischa was mine,
+My tender cousin,
+My blond lover;
+And you knew our love,
+Uncle without bowels,
+Foul old man.
+
+For a few weights of gold
+You sold her to the blacks,
+And they will drive a stinking trade
+At the dark market;
+Your slender daughter,
+The free child of our hills.
+
+She will go to serve the bed
+Of a fat man with no God,
+A guts that cannot walk,
+A belly hiding his own feet,
+A rolling paunch
+Between itself and love.
+
+She was slim and quick
+Like the antelope of our hills
+When he comes down in the summer-time
+To bathe in the pools of Tereck,
+Her stainless flesh
+Was all moonlight.
+
+Her long silk hair
+Was of so fine a gold
+And of so honey-like a brown
+That bees flew there,
+And her red lips
+Were flowers in sunlight.
+
+She was fair, alas, she was fair,
+So that her beauty goes
+To a garden of dying flowers,
+Made one with the girls that mourn
+And wither for light and love
+Behind the harem bars.
+
+And you have dirty dreams
+That she will be Sultane,
+And you will drink and boast
+And roll about,
+The grinning ancestor
+Of little kings.
+
+Hugging your very wicked gold
+Within a greasy belt,
+You paddle exulting like a bald ape
+That glories to defile,
+Unmindful of two hot young streams
+Of tears.
+
+You stole this dirty gold,
+For this gold means
+Your daughter's freedom
+And your nephew's love,
+Two fresh and lovely things
+Groaning within your belt.
+
+The sunny playing of our childhood
+At the green foot of Elbours,
+The starry playing of our youth
+Beyond the flowery fences,
+These sigh their lost delights
+Within your belt.
+
+Give me the gold;
+Damn you, give me the gold....
+You kill my mercy
+When you kill my love....
+Hold up your trembling sword;
+For this is death.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+I take the belt from the dead loins
+That put away my love,
+And turn my sweet white horse
+After the caravan....
+With dirty gold and clean steel
+I'll set Aischa free.
+
+_Ballad of the Caucasus._
+
+
+
+THE FLIGHT
+
+Softly into the saddle
+Of my black horse with white feet;
+Your brothers are frowning
+And grasping swords in sleep.
+My rifle is as clean as moonlight,
+My flints are new;
+My long grey sword is sighing
+In his blue sheath.
+Fatima gave me my grey sword
+Of Temrouk steel,
+Damascened in red gold
+To cut a pathway for the feet of love.
+
+My eye is dark and keen,
+My hand has never trembled on the sword.
+If your brothers rise and follow
+On their stormy horses,
+If they stretch their hot hands
+To catch you from my breast,
+My rifle shall not sing to them,
+My steel shall spare.
+My rifle's song is for my yellow girl,
+My eye is dark and keen,
+I'll send my bullet to the fairest heart
+That ever lady loved with in the world.
+
+My hand upon the sword
+Shall be so strong,
+He'll find the little laughing place
+Where you dance in my breast;
+And we'll have no more of the silly world
+Where our lips must lie apart.
+We'll let death pour our souls
+Into one cup,
+And mount like joyous birds to God
+With hearts on fire,
+And God will mingle us into one shape
+In an eternal garden of gold stars.
+
+_Love Ballad of the Caucasus._
+
+
+
+
+_CHINA_
+
+
+
+WE WERE TWO GREEN RUSHES
+
+We were two green rushes by opposing banks,
+ And the small stream ran between.
+Not till the water beat us down
+ Could we be brought together,
+Not till the winter came
+Could we be mingled in a frosty sleep,
+ Locked down and close.
+
+_From the Chinese of J. Wing (nineteenth century)._
+
+
+
+SONG WRITER PAID WITH AIR
+
+I sit on a white wood box
+Smeared with the black name
+Of a seller of white sugar.
+The little brown table is so dirty
+That if I had food
+I do not think I could eat.
+
+How can I promise violets drunken in wine
+For your amusement,
+How can I powder your blue cotton dress
+With splinters of emerald,
+How can I sing you songs of the amber pear,
+Or pour for the finger-tips of your white fingers
+Mingled scents in a rose agate bowl?
+
+_From the Chinese of J. Wing (nineteenth century)._
+
+
+
+THE BAD ROAD
+
+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,
+And made a cool journey far along the road.
+
+But I shall not take the road,
+Because it does not lead to her house.
+
+When she was born
+They shut her little feet in iron boxes,
+So that my beloved never walks the roads.
+
+When she was born
+They shut her heart in a box of iron,
+So that my beloved shall never love me.
+
+_From the Chinese._
+
+
+
+THE WESTERN WINDOW
+
+At the head of a thousand roaring warriors,
+With the sound of gongs,
+My husband has departed
+Following glory.
+
+At first I was overjoyed
+To have a young girl's liberty.
+
+Now I look at the yellowing willow-leaves;
+They were green the day he left.
+
+I wonder if he also was glad?
+
+_From the Chinese of Wang Ch'ang Ling (eighth century)._
+
+
+
+IN LUKEWARM WEATHER
+
+The women who were girls a long time ago
+Are sitting between the flower bushes
+And speaking softly together:
+
+"They pretend that we are old and have white hair;
+They say also that our faces
+Are not like the spring moons.
+
+"Perhaps it is a lie;
+We cannot see ourselves.
+
+"Who will tell us for certain
+That winter is not at the other side of the mirror,
+Obscuring our delights
+And covering our hair with frost?"
+
+_From the Chinese of Wang Ch'ang Ling (eighth century)._
+
+
+
+WRITTEN ON WHITE FROST
+
+The white frost covers all the arbute-trees,
+Like powder on the faces of women.
+
+Looking from window consider
+That a man without women is like a flower
+Naked without its leaves.
+
+To drive away my bitterness
+
+I write this thought with my narrowed breath
+On the white frost.
+
+_From the Chinese of Wang Chi (sixth and seventh centuries)._
+
+
+
+A FLUTE OF MARVEL
+
+Under the leaves and cool flowers
+The wind brought me the sound of a flute
+From far away.
+
+I cut a branch of willow
+And answered with a lazy song.
+
+Even at night, when all slept,
+The birds were listening to a conversation
+In their own language.
+
+_From the Chinese of Li Po (705-763)._
+
+
+
+THE WILLOW-LEAF
+
+I am in love with a child dreaming at the window.
+
+Not for her elaborate house
+On the banks of Yellow River;
+
+But for a willow-leaf she has let fall
+ Into the water.
+
+I am in love with the east breeze.
+
+Not that he brings the scent of the flowering of peaches
+ White on Eastern Hill;
+
+But that he has drifted the willow-leaf
+ Against my boat.
+
+I am in love with the willow-leaf.
+
+Not that he speaks of green spring
+ Coming to us again;
+
+But that the dreaming girl
+Pricked there a name with her embroidery needle,
+ And the name is mine.
+
+_From the Chinese of Chang Chiu Ling (675-740)._
+
+
+
+A POET LOOKS AT THE MOON
+
+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
+Singing in my garden;
+I am looking at the moon.
+
+And I think the moon is honouring me
+With a long silver look.
+
+I blink
+As bats fly black across the ray;
+But when I raise my head the silver look
+Is still upon me.
+
+The moon delights to make eyes of poets her mirror,
+And poets are many as dragon scales
+On the moonlit sea.
+
+_From the Chinese of Chang Jo Hsu._
+
+
+
+WE TWO IN A PARK AT NIGHT
+
+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
+From the dark green mist in which we waded.
+
+Six geese drop one by one into the shivering lake;
+They say "Peeng" and then after a long time, "Peeng,"
+Swimming out softly to the moon.
+
+Three of the balancing dancing geese are dim and black,
+And three are white and clear because of the moon;
+In what explanatory dawn will our souls
+Be seen to be the same?
+
+_From the Chinese of J. Wing (nineteenth century)._
+
+
+
+THE JADE STAIRCASE
+
+The jade staircase is bright with dew.
+
+Slowly, this long night, the queen climbs,
+Letting her gauze stockings and her elaborate robe
+Drag in the shining water.
+
+Dazed with the light,
+She lowers the crystal blind
+Before the door of the pavilion.
+
+It leaps down like a waterfall in sunlight.
+
+While the tiny clashing dies down,
+Sad and long dreaming,
+She watches between the fragments of jade light
+The shining of the autumn moon.
+
+_From the Chinese of Li Po (705-762)._
+
+
+
+THE MORNING SHOWER
+
+The young lady shows like a thing of light
+In the shadowy deeps of a fair window
+Grown round with flowers.
+
+She is naked and leans forward, and her flesh like frost
+Gathers the light beyond the stone brim.
+
+Only the hair made ready for the day
+Suggests the charm of modern clothing.
+
+Her blond eyebrows are the shape of very young moons.
+
+The shower's bright water overflows
+In a pure rain.
+
+She lifts one arm into an urgent line,
+Cooling her rose fingers
+On the grey metal of the spray.
+
+If I could choose my service, I would be the shower
+Dashing over her in the sunlight.
+
+_From the Chinese of J.S. Ling (1901)._
+
+
+
+A VIRTUOUS WIFE
+
+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?
+
+See, there are two tears quivering at my lids;
+I am giving back your pearls.
+
+_From the Chinese of Chang Chi (770-850)._
+
+
+
+WRITTEN ON A WALL IN SPRING
+
+It rained last night,
+But fair weather has come back
+This morning.
+
+The green clusters of the palm-trees
+Open and begin to throw shadows.
+
+But sorrow drifts slowly down about me.
+
+I come and go in my room,
+Heart-heavy with memories.
+
+The neighbour green casts shadows of green
+On my blind;
+The moss, soaked in dew,
+Takes the least print
+Like delicate velvet.
+
+I see again a gauze tunic of oranged rose
+With shadowy underclothes of grenade red.
+
+How things still live again.
+
+I go and sit by the day balustrade
+
+And do nothing
+
+Except count the plains
+And the mountains
+And the valleys
+And the rivers
+That separate from my Spring.
+
+_From the Chinese (early nineteenth century)._
+
+
+
+A POET THINKS
+
+The rain is due to fall,
+The wind blows softly.
+
+The branches of the cinnamon are moving,
+The begonias stir on the green mounds.
+
+Bright are the flying leaves,
+The falling flowers are many.
+
+The wind lifted the dry dust,
+And he is lifting the wet dust;
+Here and there the wind moves everything
+
+He passes under light gauze
+And touches me.
+
+I am alone with the beating of my heart.
+
+There are leagues of sky,
+And the water is flowing very fast.
+
+Why do the birds let their feathers
+Fall among the clouds?
+
+I would have them carry my letters,
+But the sky is long.
+
+The stream flows east
+And not one wave comes back with news.
+
+The scented magnolias are shining still,
+But always a few are falling.
+
+I close his box on my guitar of jasper
+And lay aside my jade flute.
+
+I am alone with the beating of my heart.
+
+Stay with me to-night,
+Old songs.
+
+_From the Chinese of Liu Chi (1311-1375)._
+
+
+
+IN THE COLD NIGHT
+
+Reading in my book this cold night,
+I have forgotten to go to sleep.
+The perfumes have died on the gilded bed-cover;
+The last smoke must have left the hearth
+When I was not looking.
+My beautiful friend snatches away the lamp.
+Do you know what the time is?
+
+_From the Chinese of Yuan Mei (1715-1797)._
+
+
+
+
+_DAGHESTAN_
+
+
+
+WINTER COMES
+
+Winter scourges his horses
+Through the North,
+His hair is bitter snow
+On the great wind.
+The trees are weeping leaves
+Because the nests are dead,
+Because the flowers were nests of scent
+And the nests had singing petals
+And the flowers and nests are dead.
+
+Your voice brings back the songs
+Of every nest,
+Your eyes bring back the sun
+Out of the South,
+Violets and roses peep
+Where you have laughed the snow away
+And kissed the snow away,
+And in my heart there is a garden still
+For the lost birds.
+
+_Song of Daghestan._
+
+
+
+
+_GEORGIA_
+
+
+
+PART OF A GHAZAL
+
+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)._
+
+
+
+
+_HINDUSTAN_
+
+
+
+FARD
+
+Love brings the tiny sweat into your hair
+Like stars marching in the dead of night.
+
+_From the Hindustani of Mir Taqui (eighteenth century)._
+
+
+
+INCURABLE
+
+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
+ More than the Delhi palaces.
+Why did you wait till spring;
+Were not my hands already full of red-thorned roses?
+ My heart is yours,
+So that I know not which heart I hear sighing:
+ Yaquin, Yaquin, Yaquin, foolish Yaquin.
+
+_From the Hindustani of Yaquin (eighteenth century)._
+
+
+
+A POEM
+
+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
+ And the rolling and shining of love songs.
+
+_From the Hindustani of Mir Taqui (eighteenth century)._
+
+
+
+FARD
+
+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)._
+
+
+
+MORTIFICATION
+
+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,
+And men are kneeling to your hair, and God is dead.
+
+_From the Hindustani of Hatifi (eighteenth century)._
+
+
+
+FARD
+
+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)._
+
+
+
+
+_JAPAN_
+
+
+
+GRIEF AND THE SLEEVE
+
+Tears in the moonlight,
+You know why,
+Have marred the flowers
+On my rose sleeve.
+Ask why.
+
+_From the Japanese of Hide-Yoshi._
+
+
+
+DRINK SONG
+
+The crows have wakened me
+By cawing at the moon.
+I pray that I shall not think of him;
+I pray so intently
+That he begins to fill my whole mind.
+This is getting on my nerves;
+I wonder if there is any of that wine left.
+
+_Japanese Street Song._
+
+
+
+A BOAT COMES IN
+
+Although I shall not see his face
+For the low riding of the ship,
+The three armorial oak-leaves on his cloak
+Will be enough.
+But what if I make a mistake
+And call to the wrong man?
+Or make no sign at all,
+And it is he?
+
+_Japanese Street Song._
+
+
+
+THE OPINION OF MEN
+
+My desires are like the white snows on Fuji
+That grow but never melt.
+I am becoming proud of my bad reputation;
+And the more men say,
+We cannot understand why she loves him,
+The less I care.
+I am sure that in a very short time
+I shall give myself to him.
+
+_Japanese Street Song._
+
+
+
+OLD SCENT OF THE PLUM-TREE
+
+Remembering what passed
+Under the scent of the plum-tree,
+I asked the plum-tree for tidings
+Of that other.
+Alas ... the cold moon of spring....
+
+_From the Japanese of Fujiwara Ietaka. (1158-1237)._
+
+
+
+AN ORANGE SLEEVE
+
+In the fifth month,
+When orange-trees
+Fill all the world with scent,
+I think of the sleeve
+Of a girl who loved me.
+
+_From the Japanese of Nari-hira._
+
+
+
+INVITATION
+
+The chief flower
+Of the plum-tree of this isle
+Opens to-night....
+Come, singing to the moon,
+In the third watch.
+
+_From the Japanese of a Courtesan of Nagasaki._
+
+
+
+THE CLOCKS OF DEATH
+
+In a life where the clocks
+Are slow or fast,
+It is a pleasant thing
+To die together
+As we are dying.
+
+_From the Japanese of the Wife of Bes-syo Ko-saburo Naga-haru, (sixteenth
+century)._
+
+
+
+GREEN FOOD FOR A QUEEN
+
+I was gathering
+Leaves of the Wakana
+In springtime.
+Why did the snow fall
+On my dress?
+
+_From the Japanese of the Mikado Ko-ko Ten-no, (ninth century)._
+
+
+
+THE CUSHION
+
+Your arm should only be
+A spring night's dream;
+If I accepted it to rest my head upon
+There would be rumours
+And no delight.
+
+_From the Japanese of the daughter of Taira-no Tsu-gu-naka._
+
+
+
+A SINGLE NIGHT
+
+Was one night,
+And that a night
+Without much sleep,
+Enough to make me love
+All the life long?
+
+_From the Japanese of the wife of the Mikado Sui-toka In
+(twelfth century)._
+
+
+
+AT A DANCE OF GIRLS
+
+Let the wind's breath
+Blow in the glades of the clouds
+Until they close;
+So that the beauty of these girls
+May not escape.
+
+_From the Japanese of So-dzyo Hend-zyo._
+
+
+
+ALONE ONE NIGHT
+
+This night,
+Long like the drooping feathers
+Of the pheasant,
+The chain of mountains,
+Shall I sleep alone?
+
+_From the Japanese of Kaik-no Motto-no Hitomaro
+(seventh and eighth centuries)._
+
+
+
+
+_KAFIRISTAN_
+
+
+
+WALKING UP A HILL AT DAWN
+
+Here is the wind in the morning;
+The kind red face of God
+Is looking over the hill
+We are climbing.
+
+To-morrow we are going to marry
+And work and play together,
+And laugh together at things
+Which would not amuse our neighbours.
+
+_Song of Kafiristan._
+
+
+
+PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE
+
+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.
+
+You are more beautiful than my favourite among mares,
+Your buttocks are sleeker and firmer,
+Like her your movements are on legs of light steel.
+
+Come and sit at my hearth, and I will celebrate your coming;
+I will choose from the hundred flocks of each a hundred,
+Passing at the foot of the Himalaya,
+
+The two most silky and most beautiful great sheep.
+We will go to the temple and sacrifice one of the two
+To the god Pandu, that you may have many children;
+
+And I will kill the other and roast it whole,
+My most fair rose-tree serving as a spit.
+I will ask the prettiest eaters and the prettiest drinkers;
+
+And while they eat and drink greatly for three days,
+I will wind silver rings upon your arms and feet
+And hang a chain of river gold about your neck.
+
+_Popular Song of Kafiristan._
+
+
+
+
+_KAZACKS_
+
+
+
+YOU DO NOT WANT ME?
+
+You do not want me, Zohrah.
+Is it because I am maimed?
+Yet Tamour-leng was maimed,
+Going on crippled feet,
+And he conquered the vast of the world.
+
+You do not want me, Zohrah.
+Is it because I am maimed?
+Yet I have one arm to fight for you,
+One arm to crush you to my rough breast,
+One arm to break men for you.
+
+It was to shield you from the Khargis
+That I drag this stump in the long days.
+It has been so with my women;
+They would have made you a toy for heat.
+
+After their chief with his axe once swinging
+Cut my left arm, that, severed, bloody, and dead,
+Yet struggled on the ground trying to guard you,
+I have had pain for long in my arm that's lost.
+
+Since the silk nets of your grape-lustrous eyes
+Ensnared this heart that did not try to guard,
+Ever I have a great pain in my heart that's lost.
+You do not want me, Zohrah.
+
+_Kazack poem of the Chief Gahuan-Beyg (1850-1885)._
+
+
+
+
+_KOREA_
+
+
+
+TEARS
+
+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 estranged sleep.
+
+The flower of her face is growing in the shadow
+ Among warm and rustling leaves....
+
+I see the sunlight on her house,
+ I see her curtains of vermilion silk....
+
+Here is the almond-coloured dawn;
+ And there is dew on the petals of my night flower.
+
+_Lyric of Korea._
+
+
+
+THE DREAM
+
+I dreamed that I was touching her eyelids, and I awoke
+To find her sleepy temples of rose jade
+ For one heart-beat....
+
+Though the moonlight beats upon the sea,
+ There is no boat.
+
+_Lyric of Korea._
+
+
+
+SEPARATION
+
+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;
+To-day the earth has spots of blood, and there are no flowers.
+
+The wild geese were harnessed to the autumn moon;
+They have come, I heard their crying, and they are gone.
+
+They have passed and given me no message;
+I only hear the falling, falling noise of white rain.
+
+_Song of Korea._
+
+
+
+
+_KURDISTAN_
+
+
+
+PARADISE
+
+Paradise, my darling, know that paradise,
+The Prophet-given paradise after death,
+Is far and very mysterious and most high;
+My habits would be upset in such a place.
+
+Without impiety, I should be mortally weary
+If I went there alone, without my wife;
+An ugly crowding of inferior females,
+What should I do with the houris?
+
+What should I do with those tall loaded fruit-trees,
+Seeing I could not give the fruit to you?
+What by the freshness of those blue streams,
+Seeing my face reflected there alone?
+
+And it might be worse if you came with me,
+For all of Allah's Chosen would desire you.
+And if Mahomet threw his handkerchief
+And took you up and loved you for himself?
+
+Eyes of my eyes, how could I then defend you?
+I could not be at ease and watch him love you;
+And if I mutinied against the Prophet,
+He, being zealous to love you in his peace,
+
+Would rise and send me hurrying
+Back by the sword-blade thinness of the bridge
+From paradise to earth, and in the middle
+Flick me down sideways to the fires of hell.
+
+My skin would cook and be renewed for ever
+Where murderers were burning and renewing;
+And evil souls, my only crime being love,
+Would burn me and annoy me and destroy me.
+
+If I were there and you in paradise,
+I could not even make my prayer to Allah
+That in his justice he should give me back
+My paradise.
+
+Let us love, therefore, on the earth together;
+Our love is our garden, let us take great care,
+Whisper and call pet names and kiss each other
+To live our paradise as long as may be.
+
+_Love Ballad of Kurdistan._
+
+
+
+
+_LAOS_
+
+
+
+MISADVENTURE
+
+Ever at the far side of the current
+The fishes hurl and swim,
+For pelicans and great birds
+Watch and go fishing
+On the bank-side.
+
+No man dare go alone
+In the dim great forest,
+But if I were as strong
+As the green tiger
+I would go.
+
+The holy swan on the sea
+Wishes to pass over with his wings,
+But I think it would be hard
+To go so far.
+
+If you are still pure,
+Tell me, darling;
+If you are no longer
+Clear like an evening star,
+You are the heart of a great tree
+Eaten by insects.
+Why do you lower your eyes?
+Why do you not look at me?
+
+When the blue elephant
+Finds a lotus by the water-side
+He takes it up and eats it.
+Lemons are not sweeter than sugar.
+
+If I had the moon at home
+I would open my house wide
+To the four winds of the horizon,
+So that the clouds that surround her
+Should escape and be shaken away.
+
+_Song of the Love Nights of Laos._
+
+
+
+KHAP-SALUNG
+
+Seeing that I adore you,
+Scarf of golden flowers,
+Why do you stay unmarried?
+As the liana at a tree's foot
+That quivers to wind it round,
+So do I wait for you. I pray you
+Do not detest me....
+
+I have come to say farewell.
+Farewell, scarf;
+Garden Royal
+Where none may enter,
+Gaudy money
+I may not spend.
+
+_Song of the Love Nights of Laos._
+
+
+
+THE HOLY SWAN
+
+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 place where my lover labours.
+If it rains fly low beneath the trees,
+If the sun is hot fly in the forest shadows;
+If any ask you where you are going
+Do not answer.
+You who rise for so long a journey,
+Avoid the roofs at the hour when the sun is red.
+Carry this letter to the new land of my lover.
+If he is faithful, give it to him;
+If he has forgotten, read it to him only
+And let the lightning burn it afterwards.
+
+_Song of the Love Nights of Laos._
+
+
+
+
+_MANCHURIA_
+
+
+
+FIRE AND LOVE
+
+If you do not want your heart
+Burnt at a small flame
+Like a spitted sheep,
+Fly the love of women.
+Fire burns what it touches,
+But love burns from afar.
+
+_Folk Song of Manchuria._
+
+
+
+HEARTS OF WOMEN
+
+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
+Is a thing darker.
+
+If you have seen a woman's heart
+Bare to your eyes,
+Go quickly away and never tell
+What you have seen there.
+
+_Street Song of Manchuria._
+
+
+
+
+_PERSIA_
+
+
+
+TO HIS LOVE INSTEAD OF A PROMISED PICTURE-BOOK
+
+_The greater and the lesser ills:_
+ He waved his grey hand wearily
+ Back to the anger of the sea,
+Then forward to the blue of hills.
+
+Out from the shattered barquenteen
+ The black frieze-coated sailors bore
+ Their dying despot to the shore
+And wove a crazy palanquin.
+
+They found a valley where the rain
+ Had worn the fern-wood to a paste
+ And tiny streams came down in haste
+To eastward of the mountain chain.
+
+And here was handiwork of Cretes,
+ And olives grew beside a stone,
+ And one slim phallos stood alone
+Blasphemed at by the paroquets.
+
+Hard by a wall of basalt bars
+ The night came like a settling bird,
+ And here he wept and slept and stirred
+Faintly beneath the turning stars.
+
+Then like a splash of saffron whey
+ That spills from out a bogwood bowl
+ Oozed from the mountain clefts the whole
+Rich and reluctant light of day.
+
+And when he neither moved nor spoke
+ And did not heed the morning call,
+ They laid him underneath the wall
+And wrapped him in a purple cloak.
+
+_From the Modern Persian._
+
+
+
+TOO SHORT A NIGHT
+
+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,
+Because the tale was long, not short the night.
+
+_From the Persian of Abu-Said (978-1062)._
+
+
+
+THE ROSES
+
+Roses are a wandering scent from heaven.
+Rose-seller, why do you sell your roses?
+For silver? But with the silver from your roses
+What can you buy so precious as your roses?
+
+_From the Persian of Abu-Yshac (middle of the tenth century)._
+
+
+
+I ASKED MY LOVE
+
+I asked my love: "Why do you make yourself so beautiful?"
+ "To please myself.
+I am the eye, the mirror, and the loveliness;
+The loved one and the lover and the love."
+
+_From the Persian of Abu-Said (978-1062)._
+
+
+
+A REQUEST
+
+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.
+
+_From the Persian of Rondagui (tenth century)._
+
+
+
+SEE YOU HAVE DANCERS
+
+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
+ (If moss exists),
+For loving and singing to the dancers and drinking and forgetting hell
+ (If hell exists),
+Because this is a pastime better than paradise
+ (If paradise exists).
+
+_From the Persian of Omar Khayyam (eleventh century)._
+
+
+
+
+_SIAM_
+
+
+
+THE SIGHING HEART
+
+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
+And my life ran back from me
+And my heart slipped into you.
+It seems, also, that you are the moon
+And that I am at the top of a tree.
+If I had wings I would spread them as far as you,
+Dear bud, that will not open
+Though the kisses of the holy bird knock at your petal door.
+
+_Song of Siam._
+
+
+
+
+_SYRIA_
+
+
+
+HANDING OVER THE GUN
+
+Kill me if you will not love me.
+ Here are flints;
+Ram down the heavy bullet, little leopard,
+ On the black powder.
+
+Only you must not shoot me through the head,
+ Nor touch my heart;
+Because my head is full of the ways of you
+ And my heart is dead.
+
+_Song of Syria._
+
+
+
+
+_TATARS_
+
+
+
+HONEY
+
+Young man,
+If you try to eat honey
+On the blade of a knife,
+You will cut yourself.
+
+If you try to taste honey
+On the kiss of a woman,
+Taste with the lips only,
+If not, young man,
+You will bite your own heart.
+
+_Song of the Tatars._
+
+
+
+
+_THIBET_
+
+
+
+THE LOVE OF THE ARCHER PRINCE
+
+The Khan.
+
+The son of the Khan.
+
+The love of the son of the Khan.
+
+The veil of the love of the son of the Khan.
+
+The clear breeze that lifted the veil of the love of the son of
+ the Khan.
+
+The buds of fire that scented the clear breeze that lifted the
+ veil of the love of the son of the Khan.
+
+The Archer Prince whose love kissed the buds of fire that
+ scented the clear breeze that lifted the veil of the love
+ of the son of the Khan.
+
+And the girl married the Archer Prince whose love kissed the
+ buds of fire that scented the clear breeze that lifted the
+ veil of the love of the son of the Khan.
+
+_Street Song of Thibet._
+
+
+
+
+_TURKESTAN_
+
+
+
+DISTICH
+
+Your face upon a drop of purple wine
+Shows like my soul poised on a bead of blood.
+
+_From the Turkic of Hussein Baikrani._
+
+
+
+THINGS SEEN IN A BATTLE
+
+Clear diamond heart,
+I have been hunting death
+Among the swords.
+
+But death abhors my shadow,
+And I come back
+Wounded with memories.
+
+Your eyes,
+For steel is amorous of steel
+And there are bright blue sparks.
+
+Your lips,
+I see great bloody roses
+Cut in white dead breasts.
+
+Your bed,
+For I see wrestling bodies
+Under the evening star.
+
+_From the Turkic._
+
+
+
+HUNTER'S SONG
+
+Not a stone from my black sling
+Ever misses anything,
+But the arrows of your eye
+Surer shoot and faster fly.
+
+Not one creature that I hit
+Lingers on to know of it,
+But the game that falls to love
+Lives and lingers long enough.
+
+_From the Turkic._
+
+
+
+
+_TURKEY_
+
+
+
+THE BATH
+
+My dreams are bubbles of cool light,
+Sunbeams mingled in the light green
+Waters of your bath.
+
+Through fretted spaces in the olive wood
+My love adventures with the white sun.
+
+I dive into the ice-coloured shadows
+Where the water is like light blue flowers
+Dancing on mirrors of silver.
+
+The sun rolls under the waters of your bath
+Like the body of a strong swimmer.
+
+And now you cool your feet,
+Which have the look of apple flowers,
+Under the water on the oval marble
+Coloured like yellow roses.
+
+Your scarlet nipples
+Waver under the green kisses of the water,
+Flowers drowned in a mountain stream.
+
+_From the Modern Turkish._
+
+
+
+DISTICH
+
+Lions tremble at my claws;
+And I at a gazelle with eyes.
+
+_From the Turkish of Sultan Selim I._
+
+
+
+A PROVERB
+
+Before you love,
+Learn to run through snow
+Leaving no footprint.
+
+_From the Turkish._
+
+
+
+ENVOY IN AUTUMN
+
+Here are the doleful rains,
+And one would say the sky is weeping
+The death of the tolerable weather.
+
+Tedium cloaks the wit like a veil of clouds
+And we sit down indoors.
+
+Now is the time for poetry coloured with summer.
+Let it fall on the white paper
+As ripe flowers fall from a perfect tree.
+
+I will dip down my lips into my cup
+Each time I wet my brush.
+
+And keep my thoughts from wandering as smoke wanders,
+For time escapes away from you and me
+Quicker than birds.
+
+_From the Chinese of Tu Fu (712-770)._
+
+
+
+
+
+TRANSLATOR'S NOTES
+
+
+THE GARDEN OF BRIGHT WATERS
+
+I am hoping that some readers will look on this collection primarily as
+a book of poems. The finding and selection of material and the shaping
+of the verses is my principal part in it. Most of the songs have been
+written from, or by comparing, the literal translations of French and
+Italian scholars, checked wherever possible by my own knowledge. When my
+first and very great debt to these has been stated, there remains my
+debt to the late John Duncan, to Mr. J. Wing, and to a friend, a
+distinguished writer both in Persian and Turkish, who wishes to remain
+unnamed. The kindness of these writers lies in trusting their work to my
+translation and helping me in that task. My book also owes much to
+suggestions prompted by the wide learning of Mr. L. Cranmer-Byng. My
+final debt is to him and to another generous critic. I have arranged my
+poems in the alphabetical order of their countries, and added short
+notes wherever I considered them necessary, at the instance of some
+kindly reviewers of an earlier book, which was not so arranged
+and provided.
+
+AFGHANISTAN
+
+SIKANDER, Alexander the Great.
+
+SHALIBAGH, the notable garden of Shalimar in Lahore, planted by Shah
+Jahan in 1637.
+
+ABDEL QADIR GILANI, Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, founder of the Qadirite
+order of the Dervishes, twelfth century.
+
+ANNAM
+
+K'IEN NIUe and CHIK NUe: the legend of these two stars comes from China
+and is told in Japan. Readers are referred to that section of Mr. L.
+Cranmer-Byng's _A Lute of Jade_ which deals delightfully with Po-Chue-i;
+and to Lafcadio Hearn's _Romance of the Milky Way._
+
+ARABIC
+
+ANTAR, the hero Antar Ebn Cheddad Ebn Amr Corad, who lived in the late
+sixth and early seventh centuries, owes his European reputation to
+_Siret Antar_, the Adventures of Antar, or more exactly the Conduct of
+Antar, written by Abul-Moyyed "El Antari" in the twelfth century. This
+book tells of the fighter's feats in war and of his love for his cousin
+Abla; and these are the themes of Antar's own poems.
+
+AN ESCAPE: in this poem Abu Nuas, the Court poet, tells of an adventure
+of the Khalif Haroun. There is a story that the Khalif, being set back
+by the answer of his lady, called his poets in the morning and bade them
+write a poem round the phrase, "Words of a night to bring the day." All
+were rewarded for their work save Abu Nuas; and he was condemned to
+death for spying through keyholes on his master. But after he had proved
+an alibi, he also was rewarded.
+
+"JOHN DUNCAN was a lowland Scot, who lived in Edinburgh until he was
+between twenty and twenty-five years old. He was educated at one of the
+Scots schools, and knew his way about the University if he was not
+actually a student there. He certainly had enough money to live on. A
+love affair in which he must have been infamously treated caused him to
+leave Scotland. Within a year or two he was an established member of a
+small tribe of nomadic Arabs, and eventually he became in speech and
+appearance one of them, living their lazy, pastoral life and travelling
+up and down with them the whole line of the southwest coast of the
+Persian Gulf. Before his death, which occurred last year, at the age of
+forty-two or forty-three, he had become acquainted with the whole of
+habitable Arabia.
+
+"Let Mr. Mathers take up the story as he told it to me: 'He married an
+Arab, and all his forty-odd poems are addressed to her. I saw only a
+snapshot of her, which showed her to be beautiful. In her he certainly
+found healing for the wound his abnormally fiery and sensitive nature
+had taken from the first woman. She pulled together an intellect rather
+easily subdued. I only knew him after her death (his reason for
+travelling to this country), and a dazed, utterly unpractical and
+uninterested habit of mind, which alternated with his brilliance of
+speech and to a less degree of thought, was probably a reversion to the
+psychic state which his marriage had cured.
+
+"'Like so many to whom life has at one time given a paralysing shock,
+Duncan was extremely reticent, save when he could lead the conversation,
+and be confidential at points of his own choosing; and he was not an
+easy man to question. The disappointment which had driven him from his
+country certainly made him more bitter against the British than any
+other man I have listened to. All his considerable wit and the natural
+acid of his thought were directed against our ideas, institutions,
+and beliefs.
+
+"'His one sane enthusiasm, English lyric verse, of whose depths,
+main-stream, and back-waters his knowledge was profound, formed one-half
+of his conversation.
+
+"'His English in talking was rich and varied, and it was an ironic
+caprice which made him refuse to write in that language. I doubt,
+though, whether he would have composed with ease in any tongue, for he
+found it hard to concentrate, and his small stock of verse was the
+outcome of ten years of unoccupied life. He approved, rather mockingly,
+my promise to try to find an English equivalent for some of them; and I
+think I have copies of all he wrote.
+
+"'One not acquainted with the man might find them rather hard to render,
+as, had he been an Arab actually, still he would have been the most
+unconventional of poets, neglecting form and the literary language.'"
+
+My most cordial thanks are due to The Bookworm, of the _Weekly
+Dispatch_, for permission to make this long quotation from an article
+headed, "The Strange Story of John Duncan, the Arab-Scot," which
+appeared over his _nom de plume_ in the issue of that newspaper for
+March 30, 1919.
+
+CHINA
+
+J. WING: I have already translated three of this writer's poems:
+"English Girl," "Climbing after Nectarines," and "Being together at
+Night." These may be found in _Coloured Stars_. Mr. Wing is an
+American-born Chinese and practises the profession of a valet.
+
+JAPAN
+
+THE CLOCKS OF DEATH: this poem is a _zi-sei_, or lyric made at the point
+of death. Naga-Haru committed suicide after an unsuccessful defence of
+the strong castle Mi-Ki against Hashiba Hideyoshi in 1580. His wife
+followed his example, composing this poem as she died.
+
+WAKANA, the turnip cabbage, whose leaves are eaten in early spring. The
+Mikado is lamenting a sudden realisation that he is too old for
+his love.
+
+THE CUSHION: the poetess, daughter of Tsu-gu-naka, lord of Su-Wo, while
+at a party, asked for a cushion. A certain Iye-tada offered his arm for
+her to lean her head against, and she answered with these lines.
+
+STREET SONGS: the three poems which I have so called are written in
+everyday colloquial Japanese. The words of the old language, which are
+the ornament of literary verse, are almost entirely excluded from these
+songs. In them one finds a superabundance of auxiliaries, and the
+presence of these marks a clear line between the literary and the
+folk-idiom.
+
+KAZACKS
+
+TAMOUR-LENG, Tamerlane. The facts of "You Do Not Want Me" are
+historical; but it should be added that Gahuan-Beyg succeeded in
+overcoming Zohrah's indifference, and that a few months after their
+marriage he beheaded her with his own hand for speaking to another man.
+
+LAOS
+
+THE LOVE NIGHTS OF LAOS, "Wan-Pak" Nights, at the eighth evening of the
+waxing or waning of the moon, when even Buddha has no fault to find with
+love-making in the thickets. Songs, of which I have translated three,
+are sung on these nights to the accompaniments of the "Khane," a
+pan-pipe of seven flutes; some being reserved for the singing of the
+wandering bands of girls, and others for answer by the youths.
+
+PERSIA
+
+THE ROSES, this rubai made Abu Yshac famous. He died at least twenty
+years before the birth of Omar Khayyam. Readers will have been struck by
+the similarity of idea in "The Roses" and in two lines in
+Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat:
+
+ I often wonder what the vintners buy
+ One-half so precious as the goods they sell.
+
+THIBET
+
+THE LOVE OF THE ARCHER PRINCE: this form of poem, with one rhyme and
+repetitive and increasing lines, is a familiar one in Thibet; and thence
+it has entered Kafiristan and become a popular manner of composition
+Archipelago. English readers will remember an analogous poem, "The House
+that Jack built."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Garden of Bright Waters, by Various
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