Two Similes

You have taken away my cloak,
My cloak of weariness;
Take my coat also,
My many-coloured coat of life....

On this great nursery floor
I had three toys,
A bright and varnished vow,
A Speckled Monster, best of boys,
True friend to me, and more
Beloved and a thing of cost,
My doll painted like life; and now
One is broken and two are lost.

From the Arabic of John Duncan.

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 Proverb

Edward Powys Mathers, Simple Poetry

The Jade Staircase

Edward Powys Mathers, Simple Poetry

Melodian

Edward Powys Mathers, Simple Poetry

English

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Melodian

I have been at this shooting-gallery too long.
It is monotonous how the little coloured balls
Make up and down on their silvery water thread;
It would be pleasant to have money and go instead
To watch your greasy audience in the threepenny stalls
Of the World-famous Caravan of Dance and Song.

And I want to go out beyond the turf fires there,
After I've looked at your just smiling face,
To that untented silent dark blue nighted place;
And wait such time as you will wish the noise all dumb
And drop your fairings and leave the funny man, and come ...
You have the most understanding face in all the fair.

From the Arabic of John Duncan.

Edward Powys Mathers

A New Simile

IN THE MANNER OF SWIFT

Long had I sought in vain to find
A likeness for the scribbling kind;
The modern scribbling kind, who write
In wit, and sense, and nature's spite:
Till reading, I forget what day on,
A chapter out of Tooke's Pantheon,
I think I met with something there,
To suit my purpose to a hair;
But let us not proceed too furious,
First please to turn to god Mercurius;
You'll find him pictur'd at full length
In book the second, page the tenth:
The stress of all my proofs on him I lay,
And now proceed we to our simile.

Imprimis, pray observe his hat,
Wings upon either side mark that.
Well! what is it from thence we gather?
Why these denote a brain of feather.
A brain of feather! very right,
With wit that's flighty, lear...

Oliver Goldsmith

The Little Coat

Here's his ragged "roundabout";
Turn the pockets inside out:
See; his pen-knife, lost to use,
Rusted shut with apple-juice;
Here, with marbles, top and string,
Is his deadly "devil-sling,"
With its rubber, limp at last
As the sparrows of the past!
Beeswax - buckles - leather straps -
Bullets, and a box of caps, -
Not a thing of all, I guess,
But betrays some waywardness -
E'en these tickets, blue and red,
For the Bible-verses said -
Such as this his mem'ry kept -
                    "Jesus wept."

Here's a fishing hook-and-line,
Tangled up with wire and twine,
And dead angle-worms, and some
Slugs of lead and chewing-gum,
Blent with scents that can but come
From the oil of rhodium.
Here - a soiled, yet dainty note,
That s...

James Whitcomb Riley

Evening By A Tailor

Day hath put on his jacket, and around
His burning bosom buttoned it with stars.
Here will I lay me on the velvet grass,
That is like padding to earth's meagre ribs,
And hold communion with the things about me.
Ah me! how lovely is the golden braid
That binds the skirt of night's descending robe!
The thin leaves, quivering on their silken threads,
Do make a music like to rustling satin,
As the light breezes smooth their downy nap.

Ha! what is this that rises to my touch,
So like a cushion? Can it be a cabbage?
It is, it is that deeply injured flower,
Which boys do flout us with; - but yet I love thee,
Thou giant rose, wrapped in a green surtout.
Doubtless in Eden thou didst blush as bright
As these, thy puny brethren; and thy breath
Sweetened the fr...

Oliver Wendell Holmes

To Mary Boyle

I.

Spring-flowers! While you still delay to take
Your leave of town,
Our elm-trees ruddy-hearted blossom-flake
Is fluttering down.



II.

Be truer to your promise. There! I heard
Our cuckoo call.
Be needle to the magnet of your word,
Nor wait, till all



III.

Our vernal bloom from every vale and plain
And garden pass,
And all the gold from each laburnum chain
Drop to the grass.



IV.

Is memory with your Marian gone to rest,
Dead with the dead?
For ere she left us, when we met, you prest
My hand, and said



V.

I come with your spring-flowers. You came not, my friend;
My birds would sing,
You heard not. Take then this spring-flower...

Alfred Lord Tennyson

A Dedication To E.C.B.

He was, through boyhood's storm and shower,
My best, my nearest friend;
We wore one hat, smoked one cigar,
One standing at each end.

We were two hearts with single hope,
Two faces in one hood;
I knew the secrets of his youth;
I watched his every mood.

The little things that none but I
Saw were beyond his wont,
The streaming hair, the tie behind,
The coat tails worn in front.

I marked the absent-minded scream,
The little nervous trick
Of rolling in the grate, with eyes
By friendship's light made quick.

But youth's black storms are gone and past,
Bare is each aged brow;
And, since with age we're growing bald,
Let us be babies now.

Learning we knew; but still to-day,
With spelling-book devotion,
Words of...

Gilbert Keith Chesterton