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).

Edward Powys Mathers

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

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

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).

Edward Powys Mathers

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).

Edward Powys Mathers

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...

Edward Powys Mathers

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 sun...

Edward Powys Mathers

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).

Edward Powys Mathers

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).

Edward Powys Mathers