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.

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

A Conceit

Edward Powys Mathers, Simple Poetry

The Holy Swan

Edward Powys Mathers, Simple Poetry

The Roses

Edward Powys Mathers, Simple Poetry

We Two In A Park At Night

Edward Powys Mathers, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

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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.
    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...

Edward Powys Mathers

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 ...

Edward Powys Mathers

Marriage Thoughts: by Morsellin Khan

Bridegroom
I give you my house and my lands, all golden with harvest;
My sword, my shield, and my jewels, the spoils of my strife,
My strength and my dreams, and aught I have gathered of glory,
And to-night - to-night, I shall give you my very life.

Bride
I may not raise my eyes, O my Lord, towards you,
And I may not speak: what matter? my voice would fail.
But through my dowacast lashes, feeling your beauty,
I shiver and burn with pleasure beneath my veil.

Younger Sisters
We throw sweet perfume upon her head,
And delicate flowers round her bed.
Ah, would that it were our turn to wed!

Mother
I see my daughter, vaguely, through my tears,
(Ah, lost caresses of my early years!)
I see the bridegroom, King of men i...

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson

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...

Edward Powys Mathers

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 fev...

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