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

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

The Willow-Leaf

Edward Powys Mathers, Simple Poetry

Comparisons

Edward Powys Mathers, Simple Poetry

A Boat Comes In

Edward Powys Mathers, Simple Poetry

The Jade Staircase

Edward Powys Mathers, Simple Poetry

English

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Come, My Beloved!

Come, my beloved! And I say again: Come, my beloved!
The doves are moaning and calling and will not cease.
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The jacinth has spilled odour on your hair,
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Like lemon-trees among the rocks of grey hills
Are the soft colours of the airy veil
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Your light breast veil is tawny brown with stags,
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Written in Cananore

I

Who was it held that Love was soothing or sweet?
Mine is a painful fire, at its whitest heat.

Who said that Beauty was ever a gentle joy?
Thine is a sword that flashes but to destroy.

Though mine eyes rose up from thy Beauty's banquet, calm and refreshed,
My lips, that were granted naught, can find no rest.

My soul was linked with thine, through speech and silent hours,
As the sound of two soft flutes combined, or the scent of sister flowers.

But the body, that wretched slave of the Sultan, Mind,
Who follows his master ever, but far behind,

Nothing was granted him, and every rebellious cell
Rises up with angry protest, "It is not well!

Night is falling; thou hast departed; I am alone;
And the Last Sweetness of Love thou hast n...

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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...

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Musa

O my lost beauty! - hast thou folded quite
Thy wings of morning light
Beyond those iron gates
Where Life crowds hurrying to the haggard Fates,
And Age upon his mound of ashes waits
To chill our fiery dreams,
Hot from the heart of youth plunged in his icy streams?

Leave me not fading in these weeds of care,
Whose flowers are silvered hair!
Have I not loved thee long,
Though my young lips have often done thee wrong,
And vexed thy heaven-tuned ear with careless song?
Ah, wilt thou yet return,
Bearing thy rose-hued torch, and bid thine altar burn?

Come to me! - I will flood thy silent shrine
With my soul's sacred wine,
And heap thy marble floors
As the wild spice-trees waste their fragrant stores,
In leafy islands walled with madrepores
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To Isabel.

Come near me with thy lips, and, breathe o'er mine
    Their breath, for I consume with love's desire, -
Thine ivory arms about me clasp and twine,
    And beam upon mine eye thine eye's soft fire;
Clasp me yet closer, till my heart feels thine
    Thrill, as the chords of Memnon's mystic lyre
Thrilled at the sun's uprising! thou who art
The lone, the worshipped idol of my heart!

There! balmier than the south wind, when it brings
    The scent of aromatic shrub and tree,
And tropic flower on ifs glowing wings,
    Thine odorous breath is wafted over me;
How to thy dewy lips mine own lip clings,
    And my whole being is absorbed in thee;
And in my breast thine eyes have lit a fire
That never, never, never shall expire!

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Unrequited

Passion? not hers, within whose virgin eyes
All Eden lay. And I remember how
I drank the Heaven of her gaze with sighs
She never sighed, nor gave me kiss or vow.

So have I seen a clear October pool,
Cold, liquid topaz, set within the sear
Gold of the woodland, tremorless and cool,
Reflecting all the heartbreak of the year.

Sweetheart? not she whose voice was music sweet;
Whose face was sweeter than melodious prayer.
Sweetheart I called her. When did she repeat
Sweet to one hope or heart to one despair?

So have I seen a rose set round with thorn,
Sung to and sung to by a bird of spring,
And when, breast-pierced, the bird lay all forlorn,
The rose bloomed on, fair and unnoticing.

Madison Julius Cawein