Song Writer Paid With Air

I sit on a white wood box
Smeared with the black name
Of a seller of white sugar.
The little brown table is so dirty
That if I had food
I do not think I could eat.

How can I promise violets drunken in wine
For your amusement,
How can I powder your blue cotton dress
With splinters of emerald,
How can I sing you songs of the amber pear,
Or pour for the finger-tips of your white fingers
Mingled scents in a rose agate bowl?

From the Chinese of J. Wing (nineteenth 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

A Single Night

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We Were Two Green Rushes

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Ghazal Of Muhammad Din Tilai

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Fard

Edward Powys Mathers, Simple Poetry

English

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A Poet Thinks

The rain is due to fall,
The wind blows softly.

The branches of the cinnamon are moving,
The begonias stir on the green mounds.

Bright are the flying leaves,
The falling flowers are many.

The wind lifted the dry dust,
And he is lifting the wet dust;
Here and there the wind moves everything

He passes under light gauze
And touches me.

I am alone with the beating of my heart.

There are leagues of sky,
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Why do the birds let their feathers
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I would have them carry my letters,
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A Canker In The Heart

I made a bitter song
When I was a boy,
About a girl
With hot earth-coloured hair,
Who lived with me
And left me.

I made a sour song
On her marriage-day,
That ever his kisses
Would be ghosts of mine,
And ever the measure
Of his halting love
Flow to my music.

It was a silly song,
Dear wife with cool black hair,
And yet when I recall
(At night with you asleep)
That once you gave yourself
Before we met,
I do not quite well know
What song to make.

From the Burmese (nineteenth century) (¿ by Asmapur).

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Written On White Frost

The white frost covers all the arbute-trees,
Like powder on the faces of women.

Looking from window consider
That a man without women is like a flower
Naked without its leaves.

To drive away my bitterness

I write this thought with my narrowed breath
On the white frost.

From the Chinese of Wang Chi (sixth and seventh centuries).

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Envoy In Autumn

Here are the doleful rains,
And one would say the sky is weeping
The death of the tolerable weather.

Tedium cloaks the wit like a veil of clouds
And we sit down indoors.

Now is the time for poetry coloured with summer.
Let it fall on the white paper
As ripe flowers fall from a perfect tree.

I will dip down my lips into my cup
Each time I wet my brush.

And keep my thoughts from wandering as smoke wanders,
For time escapes away from you and me
Quicker than birds.

From the Chinese of Tu Fu (712-770).

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The Wine Of Song.

Within Fancy's Halls I sit, and quaff
Rich draughts of the Wine of Song,
    And I drink, and drink,
    To the very brink
Of delirium wild and strong,
Till I lose all sense of the outer world,
And see not the human throng.

The lyral chords of each rising thought
Are swept by a hand unseen;
    And I glide, and glide,
    With my music bride,
Where few spiritless souls have been;
And I soar afar on wings of sound,
With my fair AEolian Queen.

Deep, deeper still, from the springs of Thought
I quaff, till the fount is dry;
    And I climb, and climb,
    To a height sublime,
Up the stars of some lyric sky,
Where I seem to rise upon airs that melt
Into song as they pass by.

Millennial rounds of bliss I live,
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A Song.

        Spring-time is coming again, my dear;
            Sunshine and violets blue, you know;
        Crocuses lifting their sleepy heads
            Out of their sheets of snow.
        And I know a blossom sweeter by far
        That violets blue, or crocuses are,
            And bright as the sunbeam's glow.
        But how can I dare to look in her eyes,
            Colored with heaven's own hue?
        That wouldn't do at all, my dear,
            It really wouldn't do.

        Her hair is a rippling, tossing sea;
            In its golden depths the fairies play,
        Beckoning, dancing, mocking there,
            Luring my heart away.
        And her merry lips are the ripest red
        That ever addled a poor man's head,
            Or...

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