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).

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

Proposal Of Marriage

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A Single Night

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Ghazal Of Muhammad Din Tilai

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The Lost Lady

Edward Powys Mathers, Simple Poetry

English

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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,
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What by the freshness of those blue streams,
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And it might be worse if you came with me,
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Well, there's the brazier set by the temple door:
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Bards of Passion and of Mirth,
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