Justin H. McCarthy

“ Must I spill the wine I’m drinking,
Must I practise what I preach,
Ere Mohammed’s hand will reach
Out to save my soul from sinking? [Pg 39]
Must I shrink from soft caresses,
Must I turn my eyes away,
Must my heart no longer stay
In the tangle of your tresses?
Talk no more; I’ll not believe it;
Love is far too sweet to lose,
And while wine is in the cruse,
By my beard I’ll never leave it.
Hafiz, if the dedication
Of thy being must belong
Thus to woman, wine, and song,
Cease to preach renunciation.
[Pg 40] AFTER RHAMAZAN.
Thank Allah! ”

“ With the vineyard’s sanguine flood?
If I drink till dawn arouses
All the Muftis from their houses,
Do I drink my brother’s blood? [Pg 43]
Hafiz, cease thy soul to trouble
With the wherefore and the how;
Laugh and love, for life’s a bubble;
Drink till everything grows double,
And the roses leave your brow.
[Pg 44] LONELY.
I am lonely, very lonely, for the girl who stole my heart
Shines a star in other heavens, plays another lover’s part,
While I sit in sombre silence, hearing how my heart will beat,
When I catch the faintest footfall sounding down my dreary street. ”

“ Very varied laws of life you and I are firm on;
Which of us, my friend, is text? which of us is sermon?
Every sober man or drunk seeks his soul’s ideal;
In the tavern and the mosque love alike is real. ”

“ The shrines are shattered and no men pray,
The law is broken and none obey.
The roses of youth are no longer red,
Bitter life’s wine is, bitter its bread,
The lips of the poets are stopped with clay,
And beauty fades into dull decay. ”

“ Gone is gone, and dead is dead,
And no roses bloom as red
As the roses used to blow
Long ago.
Though my eyes pursue the swallow
As he travels towards the sun, [Pg 17]
Aged limbs refuse to follow
Where the fancies lightly run.
Hafiz, cease, the game is done,
Life’s fantastic robe is spun;
Fate marked out the way to go
Long ago.
You were passionate, my poet,
In your manhood’s golden dawn;
Seized the seed of life to sow it
On the tulip-tinted lawn;
Now you sit at home and yawn,
Withered, grizzled, bent and drawn,
By the hearth: you scorned its glow
Long ago. [Pg 18]
What is left? ”

“ I was your lover again. Heigho!
Hate you or love you, I can’t forget you.
[Pg 21] KAIF.
Mine be the musk and the music, mine be the laughing girl;
Mine be the ample flagon, brimmed with the blood of the vine;
Mine the divan encushioned, watching the dancers twirl;
Mine the narghili serpent, breathing its soul divine.
Others can juggle with statecraft, others can lust for command;
Others can envy their fellows woman or vintage or gold; [Pg 22]
Others can wrangle for title, fight for a rood of land;
Others think souls and bodies things to be bought and sold. ”

“ Such as they are, they do their task, fill place in the world awhile;
Such as they are, they eat and drink, and sleep on the breasts of their brides;
Such as they are, they sicken and die—may jackals their graves defile.
I for my part am happy, I for my part am calm,
I for my part rejoice to the full in the hour that glideth by, [Pg 23]
I for my part with all my heart delight in the vineyard’s balm,
I for my part will love and laugh till my moment comes to die.
Grant me, Allah, digestion; grant me, Allah, desire;
Grant me a mistress with almond eyes and cinnamon-scented breath ”

“ Still the rose would greet the west wind with its petals’ perfect red. [Pg 59]
Once a songster in the garden chanted to a scornful rose,
‘Cease thy scorn, for in the hedges many a fairer blossom grows.’
Then the rose made answer smiling, ‘Singer, thou hast spoken sooth,
But no lover e’er addresses lover with so little ruth.
‘Think not how the roses wither, be but gay while roses bloom,
For the world’s delight is little in the shadow of the tomb.’
Hafiz, if you sang more sweetly than the wind among the reeds,
She you love is but the rose tree, and the rose tree never heeds. ”

“ Almond-eyed and jasmine-bosomed, like a poet stringing pearls.
In my tranquil cypress mazes just outside the sleepy town,
Blooms a tribe of laughing lilies fairer than a kingly crown. [Pg 8]
Every lily in the garden wears a woman’s gracious name,
Every lily in the garden set my spirit once aflame;
And amongst that throng of lilies scarcely whiter than his hair,
Hafiz sits and dreams at sunset of the flowers no longer fair ”

“ Writ in the purple petals of the rose?
And yet, O Hafiz! thou that talkest so wise
Of prudence, and of patience, and compassion,
Thy heart is all on fire with foolish passion
For one fair face and two tormenting eyes.
[Pg 36] WISDOM.
Weep not for the waning rose
Sigh not when the south wind blows,
Drown reflection in the can,
Dissipated Mussulman;
Better to be glad than sad,
By the waves of Rocknabad.
If the truth must be confest,
Youth’s a juggle, love’s a jest, [Pg 37]
Life’s a comic caravan,
Discontented Mussulman ”

“ Hafiz, night’s rebel angels sweep
Across the sun; I pledge you deep,
And smiling, sighing, sink to sleep.
[Pg 6] MEMORY.
Sitting silent in the twilight, faces of my former loves
Float about my fancy softly, like a silver flight of doves.
Brighter than the stars of heaven is the shining of their eyes,
Sweeter are their angel voices than the speech of Paradise. [Pg 7]
I am old and grey and weary, winter in my blood and brain ”

“ Than filled, Hafiz, that cup of thine.
Master and most benign of shades,
Before thy gracious phantom fades
To Mosellay’s enchanted glades,
Breathe on my lips, and o’er my brain
Some comfort for thy child, whose pain
Strives as you strove, but strives in vain.
When sundown sets the world on fire,
The music of the Master’s lyre
Deadens the ache of keen desire. [Pg 4]
Reading this painted Persian page,
Where, half a lover, half a sage,
You built your heart a golden cage,
My fancy, skimming southern seas,
Wanders at twilight where the breeze
Flutters the dark pomegranate trees. ”

“ Talk no babble about wisdom: in the awful hour of death,
Is the breath of Aristotle better than the beggar’s breath? [Pg 69]
Spare me, pious friend, reproaches, for the selfsame God who chose
You to be so wise and pious, made me love the wine and rose.
Hafiz, spend thy life so wisely that when thou at last art dead,
‘Dead’ may not be all the comment, all the requiem that’s said.
[Pg 70] HAROUN ER-RASHEED’S POET.
Khalifah Haroun, surnamed Er-Rasheed,
In the calm evening of a festal day,
Ordered his bard, Abu-l’Atahiyeh,
To praise the life it pleased his lord to lead. ”

“ Which frights our master with a boding note
In lieu of mirthful music; look to die.’ [Pg 73]
‘Nay,’ Haroun whispered, ‘do not blame the bard;
He saw our soul benighted, and, like wind,
Dispersed the veil of error. Let him find
My richest gems too poor for his reward.’
[Pg 74] GHAZEL.
If the gracious girl I worship would but take my heart in hand,
I would give her for her beauty Ispahan and Samarcand.
But this lass, the very fairest trouble of our tranquil town,
Plucks all patience from my bosom, lifts my hopes to laugh them down. [Pg 75]
She has slandered me, so be it ”