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).

Edward Powys Mathers

Edward Powys Mathers was an English translator and poet, best known for translating the French Orientalist J.C. Mardrus's translation of 'The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night' in 1923. In addition to translations, Powys Mathers was an influential figure in the realm of cryptic crosswords, devising some of the most challenging puzzles for 'The Observer'. His translations have been lauded for their literary beauty and for introducing English-speaking audiences to classic Persian, Arabic, and Turkish poetry.

Edward Powys Mathers

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English

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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).

Edward Powys Mathers

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.

Edward Powys Mathers

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.

Edward Powys Mathers

Two Nights

(Suggested by the lives of Napoleon and Josephine.)


I.

One night was full of rapture and delight -
    Of reunited arms and swooning kisses,
    And all the unnamed and unnumbered blisses
Which fond souls find in love of love at night.

Heart beat with heart, and each clung into each
    With twining arms that did but loose their hold
    To cling still closer; and fond glances told
These truths for which there is no uttered speech.

There was sweet laughter and endearing words,
    Made broken by the kiss that could not wait,
    And cooing sounds as of dear little birds
That in spring-time love and woo and mate.

And languid sighs that breathed of love's content
And all too soon this night of rapture went.


II.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

In Absence

My lovely one, be near to me to-night.
For now I need you most, since I have gone
Through the sparse woodland in the fading light,
Where in time past we two have walked alone,
Heard the loud nightjar spin his pleasant note,
And seen the wild rose folded up for sleep,
And whispered, though the soft word choked my throat,
Your dear name out across the valley deep.
Be near to me, for now I need you most.
To-night I saw an unsubstantial flame
Flickering along those shadowy paths, a ghost
That turned to me and answered to your name,
Mocking me with a wraith of far delight.
... My lovely one, be near to me to-night.

Edward Shanks

Alone

The noon's greygolden meshes make
All night a veil,
The shorelamps in the sleeping lake
Laburnum tendrils trail.

The sly reeds whisper to the night
A name, her name,
And all my soul is a delight,
A swoon of shame.

James Joyce