The Dancing Heart

When she came she said:
You know that your love is granted,
Why is your heart trembling?

And I:
You are bringing joy for my heart
And so my heart is dancing.

From the Arabic of Urak El Hutail.

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

In The Cold Night

Edward Powys Mathers, Simple Poetry

Old Greek Lovers

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Perturbation At Dawn

Edward Powys Mathers, Simple Poetry

Written On A Wall In Spring

Edward Powys Mathers, Simple Poetry

English

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Heart Of My Heart

Here where the season turns the land to gold,
Among the fields our feet have known of old,
When we were children who would laugh and run,
Glad little playmates of the wind and sun,
Before came toil and care and years went ill,
And one forgot and one remembered still;
Heart of my heart, among the old fields here,
Give me your hands and let me draw you near,
Heart of my heart.

Stars are not truer than your soul is true
What need I more of heaven then than you?
Flowers are not sweeter than your face is sweet
What need I more to make my world complete?
O woman nature, love that still endures,
What strength has ours that is not born of yours?
Heart of my heart, to you, whatever come,
To you the lead, whose love hath led me home.
Heart of my heart.

Madison Julius Cawein

The Sighing Heart

I made search for you all my life, and when I found you
There came a trouble on me,
So that it seemed my blood escaped
And my life ran back from me
And my heart slipped into you.
It seems, also, that you are the moon
And that I am at the top of a tree.
If I had wings I would spread them as far as you,
Dear bud, that will not open
Though the kisses of the holy bird knock at your petal door.

Song of Siam.

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I Asked My Love

I asked my love: "Why do you make yourself so beautiful?"
                "To please myself.
I am the eye, the mirror, and the loveliness;
The loved one and the lover and the love."

From the Persian of Abu-Said (978-1062).

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).

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To Her

Your presence like a benison to me
Wakes my sick soul to dreamful ecstasy,
I fancy that some old Arabian night
Saw you my houri and my heart's delight.

And wandering forth beneath the passionate moon,
Your love-strung zither and my soul in tune,
We knew the joy, the haunting of the pain
That like a flame thrills through me now again.

To-night we sit where sweet the spice winds blow,
A wind the northland lacks and ne'er shall know,
With clasped hands and spirits all aglow
As in Arabia in the long ago.

Paul Laurence Dunbar

My Dear Mistress Has A Heart

My dear mistress has a heart
Soft as those kind looks she gave me,
When with love's resistless art,
And her eyes, she did enslave me;
But her constancy's so weak,
She's so wild and apt to wander,
That my jealous heart would break
Should we live one day asunder.

Melting joys about her move,
Killing pleasures, wounding blisses;
She can dress her eyes in love,
And her lips can arm with kisses;
Angels listen when she speaks,
She's my delight, all mankind's wonder;
But my jealous heart would break
Should we live one day asunder.

John Wilmot