from Epipsychidion
… Love’s very pain is sweet,
But its reward is in the world divine,
Which, if not here, it builds beyond the grave …
from The West-Eastern Divan
Love wrought on me with evil mind!
That in good truth I well may say;
I sing indeed with heavy heart.
But see these tapers—’tis their part
To shine even while they waste away.
Love’s anguish sought a place apart,
Where all was desolate, wild and rude;
He found betimes my empty heart,
And nested in the solitude.
—translated from the German by Edward Dowden
from Heart and Mind
Said the Sun to the Moon—‘When you are but a lonely white crone,
And I, a dead King in my golden armour somewhere in a dark wood,
Remember only this of our hopeless love:
That never till Time is done
Will the fire of the heart and the fire of the mind be one.’
Sonnet XIII
If the lorn bird complain, or rustling sweep
Soft summer airs o’er foliage waving slow,
Or the hoarse brook come murmuring down the steep,
Where on the enamel’d bank I sit below
With thoughts of love that bid my numbers flow;
’Tis then I see her, though in earth she sleep!
Her, form’d in Heaven! I see, and hear, and know!
Responsive sighing, weeping as I weep:
‘Alas!’ she pitying says, ‘ere yet the hour,
Why hurry life away with swifter flight?
Why from thy eyes this flood of sorrow pour?
No longer mourn my fate! through death my days
Become eternal! to eternal light
These eyes which seem’d in darkness closed, I raise!’
—translated from the Italian by Barbarina Dacre
Early Death
She pass’d away like morning dew
Before the sun was high;
So brief her time, she scarcely knew
The meaning of a sigh.
As round the rose its soft perfume,
Sweet love around her floated;
Admired she grew—while mortal doom
Crept on, unfear’d, unnoted.
Love was her guardian Angel here,
But Love to Death resign’d her;
Tho’ love was kind, why should we fear
But holy Death is kinder.
from The Preface to the Rose-Garden
Ask me not His description! Nay, for how,
How might I senseless of the Signless speak?
We lovers are the slain of the Beloved,
’Tis idle of the slain a voice to seek.
—translated from the Persian by Reynold A. Nicholson
The Death of Lovers
We shall have beds full of subtle perfumes,
Divans as deep as graves, and on the shelves
Will be strange flowers that blossomed for us
Under more beautiful heavens.
Using their dying flames emulously,
Our two hearts will be two immense torches
Which will reflect their double light
In our two souls, those twin mirrors.
Some evening made of rose and of mystical blue
A single flash will pass between us
Like a long sob, charged with farewells;
And later an Angel, setting the doors ajar,
Faithful and joyous, will come to revive
The tarnished mirrors, the extinguished flames.
—translated from the French by William Aggeler
The Rose
Where is our rose, friends?
Tell if ye may!
Faded the rose, friends,
The Dawn-child of Day.
Ah, do not say,
Such is life’s fleetness!
No, rather say,
I mourn thee, rose, —farewell!
Now to the lily-bell
Flit we away.
—translated from the Russian by Thomas B. Shaw
Love Song
The body perishes, the heart stays young.
The platter wears away with serving food.
No log retains its bark when old,
No lover peaceful while the rival weeps.
—translated from the Zulu by Ulli Beier
Love, the Hierophant
’Tis heart-ache lays the lover’s passion bare:
No sickness with heart-sickness may compare.
Love is a malady apart, the sign
And astrolabe of mysteries Divine.
Whether of heavenly mould or earthly cast,
Love still doth lead us Yonder at the last.
Reason, explaining Love, can naught but flounder
Like ass in mire: Love is Love’s own expounder.
Does not the sun himself the sun declare?
Behold him! All the proof thou seek’st is there.
—translated from the Persian by Reynold A. Nicholson
from The Odyssey
‘O (she cries)
Let not against thy spouse thine anger rise!
O versed in every turn of human art,
Forgive the weakness of a woman’s heart!
The righteous powers, that mortal lots dispose,
Decree us to sustain a length of woes,
And from the flower of life the bliss deny
To bloom together, fade away, and die.
O let me, let me not thine anger move,
That I forbore, thus, thus to speak my love;
Thus in fond kisses, while the transport warms,
Pour out my soul, and die within thine arms!
I dreaded fraud! Men, faithless men, betray
Our easy faith, and make the sex their prey:
Against the fondness of my heart is strove:
’Twas caution, O my lord! not want of love.
Like me had Helen fear’d, with wanton charms,
Ere the fair mischief set two worlds in arms;
Ere Greece rose dreadful in the avenging day;
Thus had she fear’d, she had not gone astray.
But Heaven, averse to Greece, in wrath decreed
That she should wander, and that Greece should bleed:
Blind to the ills that from injustice flow,
She colour’d all our wretched lives with woe.
But why these sorrows when my lord arrives?
I yield, I yield! my own Ulysses lives!
The secrets of the bridal bed are known
To thee, to me, to Actoris alone
(My father’s present in the spousal hour,
The sole attendant on our genial bower).
Since what no eye hath seen thy tongue reveal’d,
Hard and distrustful as I am, I yield.’
—translated from the Greek by Alexander Pope
from Díwán al-Mutanabbí
How glows mine heart for him whose heart to me is cold,
Who liketh ill my case and me in fault doth hold!
Why should I hide a love that hath worn thin my frame?
To Saifu’ddaula all the world avows the same.
Though love of his high star unites us, would that we
According to our love might so divide the fee!
Him have I visited when sword in sheath was laid,
And I have seen him when in blood swam every blade:
Him, both in peace and war the best of all mankind,
Whose crown of excellence was still his noble mind.
Do foes by flight escape thine onset, thou dost gain
A chequered victory, half of pleasure, half of pain.
So puissant is the fear thou strik’st them with, it stands
Instead of thee and works more than thy warriors’ hands.
Unfought the field is thine: thou need’st not further strain
To chase them from their holes in mountain or in plain.
What! ’fore thy fierce attack whene’er an army reels,
Must thy ambitious soul press hot upon their heels?
Thy task it is to rout them on the battle-ground:
No shame to thee if they in flight have safety found.
Or thinkest thou, perchance, that victory is sweet
Only when scimitars and necks each other greet?
O justest of the just save in thy deeds to me!
Thou art accused and thou, O Sire, must judge the plea.
Look, I implore thee, well! Let not thine eye cajoled
See fat in empty froth, in all that glisters gold!
What use and profit reaps a mortal of his sight,
If darkness unto him be indistinct from light?
My deep poetic art the blind have eyes to see,
My verses ring in ears as deaf as deaf can be.
They wander far abroad whilst I am unaware,
But men collect them watchfully with toil and care.
Oft hath my laughing mien prolonged the insulter’s sport
Until with claw and mouth I cut his rudeness short.
Ah, when the lion bares his teeth, suspect his guile,
Nor fancy that the lion shows to thee a smile!
I have slain the foe that sought my heart’s blood, many a time,
Riding a noble mare whose back none else may climb,
Whose hind and fore-legs seem in galloping as one;
Nor hand nor foot requireth she to urge her on.
And oh, the days when I have swung my fine-edged glaive
Amidst a sea of death where wave was dashed on wave!
The desert knows me well, the night, the mounted men,
The battle and the sword, the paper and the pen!
—translated from the Arabic by Reynold A. Nicholson
Last Love
Love at the closing of our days
is apprehensive and very tender.
Glow brighter, brighter, farewell rays
of one last love in its evening splendor.
Blue shade takes half the world away:
through western clouds alone some light is slanted.
O tarry, O tarry, declining day,
enchantment, let me stay enchanted.
The blood runs thinner, yet the heart
remains as ever deep and tender.
O last belated love, thou art
a blend of joy and of hopeless surrender.
—translated from the Russian by Vladimir Nabokov
from The Prophet
When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.
from Lyric
She whom I love loves another, and the other again loves another, while another is pleased with me. Ah! the tricks of the god of love!
—translated from the Sanskrit by Peter van Bohlen
One Chain of Your Neck
Beloved, will you rescue your lover captive in the pit?
Dispatch the fragrance of your garments to inform him thus!
Will you draw out your lips with waters of red tint
Or with the blood of fawns give scent to your cheeks?
Provide pleasure to your lover as reward for his ardor
And take my life and my soul as the price of your dowry!
If with your two eyes you break my heart,
But one chain of your neck will make it live again!
—translated from the Hebrew by Leon J. Weinberger
When We Two Parted
When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.
Sunk chill on my brow—
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame;
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.
They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o’er me—
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well—
Long, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.
In secret we met—
In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?—
With silence and tears.
His Lady’s Tomb
As in the gardens, all through May, the rose,
Lovely and young and rich apparelled,
Makes sunrise jealous of her rosy red,
When dawn upon the dew of dawning glows;
Graces and Loves within her breast repose,
The woods are faint with the sweet odour shed,
Till rains and heavy suns have smitten dead
The languid flower and the loose leaves unclose:
So this, the perfect beauty of our days,
When heaven and earth were vocal of her praise,
The fates have slain, and her sweet soul reposes:
And tears I bring, and sighs, and on her tomb
Pour milk, and scatter buds of many a bloom,
That, dead as living, Rose may be with roses.
—translated from the French by Andrew Lang
Love’s Secret
Never seek to tell thy love,
Love that never told can be;
For the gentle wind doth move
Silently, invisibly.
I told my love, I told my love,
I told her all my heart,
Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears.
Ah! She did depart!
Soon after she was gone from me,
A traveler came by,
Silently, invisibly:
He took her with a sigh.
I Loved You
I loved you; even now I may confess,
Some embers of my love their fire retain;
But do not let it cause you more distress,
I do not want to sadden you again.
Hopeless and tonguetied, yet I loved you dearly
With pangs the jealous and the timid know;
So tenderly I loved you, so sincerely,
I pray God grant another love you so.
—translated from the Russian by Reginald Mainwaring Hewitt
A Maiden’s Lament
Full oft he sware with accents true and tender,
‘Though years roll by, my love shall ne’er wax old!’
And so to him my heart I did surrender,
Clear as a mirror of pure burnished gold;
And from that day, unlike the seaweed bending
To every wave raised by the autumn gust,
Firm stood my heart, on him alone depending,
As the bold seaman in his ship doth trust.
Is it some cruel god that hath bereft me?
Or hath some mortal stolen away his heart?
No word, no letter since the day he left me;
Nor more he cometh, ne’er again to part!
In vain I weep, in helpless, hopeless sorrow,
From earliest morn until the close of day;
In vain, till radiant dawn brings back the morrow,
I sigh the weary, weary nights away.
No need to tell how young I am, and slender—
A little maid that in thy palm could lie:
Still for some message comforting and tender
I pace the room in sad expectancy.
—translated from the Japanese by Basil Hall Chamberlain
A Broken Appointment
You did not come,
And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb.—
Yet less for loss of your dear presence there
Than that I thus found lacking in your make
That high compassion which can overbear
Reluctance for pure loving-kindness’ sake
Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum,
You did not come.
You love not me,
And love alone can lend you loyalty;
—I know and knew it. But, unto the store
Of human deeds divine in all but name,
Was it not worth a little hour or more
To add yet this: Once you, a woman, came
To soothe a time-torn man; even though it be
You love not me?
from Rimas
Love is a fire that burns unseen,
a wound that aches yet isn’t felt,
an always discontent contentment,
a pain that rages without hurting,
a longing for nothing but to long,
a loneliness in the midst of people,
a never feeling pleased when pleased,
a passion that gains when lost in thought.
It’s being enslaved of your own free will;
it’s counting your defeat a victory;
it’s staying loyal to your killer.
But if it’s so self-contradictory,
how can Love, when Love chooses,
bring human hearts into sympathy?
—translated from the Portuguese by Richard Zenith
To —
Yes! I remember well our meeting
When first thou dawnèdst on my sight,
Like some fair phantom past me fleeting,
Some nymph of purity and light.
By weary agonies surrounded
’Mid toil, ’mid mean and noisy care,
Long in mine ear thy soft voice sounded,
Long dreamed I of thy features fair.
Years flew; Fate’s blast grew ever stronger,
Scattering mine early dreams to air,
And thy soft voice I heard no longer
No longer saw thy features fair.
In exile’s silent desolation
Slowly dragged on the days for me,—
Orphaned of life, of inspiration,
Of tears, of love, of deity.
I woke: once more my heart was beating—
Once more thou dawnèdst on my sight,
Like some fair phantom past me fleeting,
Some nymph of purity and light.
My heart has found its consolation;
All has revived once more for me,
And vanished life, and inspiration,
And tears, and love, and deity.
—translated from the Russian by Thomas B. Shaw
Song
Go, lovely Rose!
Tell her that wastes her time and me
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.
Tell her that’s young,
And shuns to have her graces spied,
That hadst thou sprung
In deserts, where no men abide,
Thou must have uncommended died.
Small is the worth
Of beauty from the light retired;
Bid her come forth,
Suffer herself to be desired,
And not blush so to be admired.
Then die! that she
The common fate of all things rare
May read in thee;
How small a part of time they share
That are so wondrous sweet and fair!
from Lyric
Where thou art not and the light of thine eyes, there to me is darkness; even by the brightness of the taper’s light, all to me is dark. Even by the quiet glow of the hearth-fire, all to me is dark. Though the moon and the stars shine together, yet all is dark to me. The light of the sun is able only to distress me. Where thou, my doe, and thine eyes are not, there all is dark to me.
—translated from the Sanskrit by Von Schroeder
Intimates
Don’t you care for my love? she said bitterly.
I handed her the mirror, and said:
Please address these questions to the proper person!
Please make all requests to head-quarters!
In all matters of emotional importance
please approach the supreme authority direct!—
So I handed her the mirror.
And she would have broken it over my head,
but she caught sight of her own reflection
and that held her spellbound for two seconds
while I fled.
You would have understood me, had you waited;
I could have loved you, dear! as well as he:
Had we not been impatient, dear! and fated
Always to disagree.
What is the use of speech? Silence were fitter:
Lest we should still be wishing things unsaid.
Though all the words we ever spake were bitter,
Shall I reproach you dead?
Nay, let this earth, your portion, likewise cover
All the old anger, setting us apart:
Always, in all, in truth was I your lover;
Always, I held your heart.
I have met other women who were tender,
As you were cold, dear! with a grace as rare.
Think you, I turned to them, or made surrender,
I who had found you fair?
Had we been patient, dear! ah, had you waited,
I had fought death for you, better than he:
But from the very first, dear! we were fated
Always to disagree.
Late, late, I come to you, now death discloses
Love that in life was not to be our part:
On your low lying mound between the roses,
Sadly I cast my heart.
I would not waken you: nay! this is fitter;
Death and the darkness give you unto me;
Here we who loved so, were so cold and bitter,
Hardly can disagree.
—translated from the French by Ernest Dowson
from The Song of Lasting Regret
‘Turning my head and looking down to the sites of the mortal sphere,
I can no longer see Ch’ang-an, what I see is dust and fog.
Let me take up these familiar old objects to attest to my deep love:
The filigree case, the two-pronged hairpin of gold, I entrust to you to take back.
‘Of the hairpin but one leg remains, and one leaf-fold of the case;
The hairpin is broken in its yellow gold, and the case’s filigree halved.
But if only his heart is as enduring as the filigree and the gold,
Above in heaven, or amidst men, we shall surely see each other.’
As the envoy was to depart, she entrusted poignantly to him words as well,
Words in which there was a vow that only two hearts would know:
‘On the seventh day of the seventh month, in the Hall of Protracted Life,
At the night’s mid-point, when we spoke alone, with no one else around—
In heaven, would that we might become birds of coupled wings! “
On earth, would that we might be trees of intertwining limbs! … ’ ”
Heaven is lasting, earth long-standing, but there is a season for their end;
This regret stretches on and farther, with no ending time.
—translated from the Chinese by Paul W. Kroll
To Silvia
Silvia, rememberest thou
Yet that sweet time of thine abode on earth,
When beauty graced thy brow
And fired thine eyes, so radiant and so gay;
And thou, so joyous, yet of pensive mood,
Didst pass on youth’s fair way?
The chambers calm and still,
The sunny paths around,
Did to thy song resound,
When thou, upon thy handiwork intent,
Wast seated, full of joy
At the fair future where thy hopes were bound.
It was the fragrant month of flowery May,
And thus went by thy day.
I leaving oft behind
The labours and the vigils of my mind,
That did my life consume,
And of my being far the best entomb,
Bade from the casement of my father’s house
Mine ears give heed unto thy silver song,
And to thy rapid hand
That swept with skill the spinning thread along.
I watched the sky serene,
The radiant ways and flowers,
And here the sea, the mountain there, expand.
No mortal tongue can tell
What made my bosom swell.
What hopes, O Silvia! and what souls were ours!
In what guise did we meet
Our destiny and life?
When I remember such aspiring flown,
Fierce pain invades my soul,
Which nothing can console,
And my misfortune I again bemoan.
O Nature, void of ruth,
Why not give some return
For those fair promises? Why full of fraud
Thy wretched offspring spurn?
Thou ere the herbs by winter were destroyed,
Led to the grave by an unknown disease,
Didst perish, tender blossom: thy life’s flower
Was not by thee enjoyed;
Nor heard, thy heart to please,
The admiration of thy raven hair
Or of the enamoured glances of thine eyes;
Nor thy companions in the festive hour
Spoke of love’s joys and sighs.
Ere long my hope as well
Was dead and gone. By cruel Fate’s decree
Was youthfulness denied
Unto my years. Ah me!
How art thou past for aye,
Thou dear companion of my earlier day,
My hope so much bewailed!
Is this the world? Are these
The joys, the loves, the labours and the deeds
Whereof so often we together spoke?
Is this the doom to which mankind proceeds?
Revealed, thou sankest; and thy dying hand
Pointed to death, a figure of cold gloom,
And to a distant tomb.
—translated from the Italian by Francis Henry Cliffe