“ A POET LOOKS AT THE MOON
I hear a woman singing in my garden,
But I look at the moon in spite of her.
I have no thought of trying to find the singer
Singing in my garden;
I am looking at the moon.
And I think the moon is honouring me
With a long silver look.
I blink
As bats fly black across the ray;
But when I raise my head the silver look
Is still upon me.
The moon delights to make eyes of poets her mirror,
And poets are many as dragon scales
On the moonlit sea. ”

“ Touch my temples with your fingers, scarlet rose.
Did God use a stronger light
When He fashioned and dropped the sun into the sky
Or dropped your black stars into their blue sea?
Treasure the touches of my fingers.
God did not spend His strongest light
On a sun above or a look of love,
But on a round gold ring, from you to me.
Touch my cheeks with your fingers, blue hyacinth.
Did God use a whiter silk
Weaving the veil for your fevered roses,
Or spinning the moon that lies across your face? ”

“ Your eyes have lighted a small fire below my heart,
Put on your gold rings and your amber rings, and come to me.
Put on your gold rings and your amber rings, and you will be more beautiful
Than the brown girls of poets and the milk-white wives of kings.
The coil of your hair is like a hangman's rope;
But press me to your green collar between your orange sleeves.
Press me to your green collar between your orange sleeves,
And give yourself once to
Ajam
. Slip away weeping,
Slip weeping away from the house of the wicked, and come to me. ”

“ Ever your rose face or black curls are with Shaguil;
Because your curls are night and your face is day.
From the Hindustani of Shaguil (eighteenth century) .
MORTIFICATION
Now that the wind has taught your veil to show your eyes and hair,
All the world is bowing down to your dear head;
Faith has crept away to die beside the tomb of prayer,
And men are kneeling to your hair, and God is dead.
From the Hindustani of Hatifi (eighteenth century) .
FARD
A love-sick heart dies when the heart is whole,
For all the heart's health is to be sick with love. ”

“ Song of the Love Nights of Laos.
MANCHURIA FIRE AND LOVE
If you do not want your heart
Burnt at a small flame
Like a spitted sheep,
Fly the love of women.
Fire burns what it touches,
But love burns from afar.
Folk Song of Manchuria.
HEARTS OF WOMEN
It is hard for a man to tell
The hidden thought in his friend's heart,
And the thought in a man's own heart
Is a thing darker. ”

“ The flowers are dying in my heart, my breast is a fading garden.
Her breast is a sweet garden now, and her garments are gold flowers;
I am an orchard at night, for my friend has gone a journey.
I am
Majid Shah
, a slave that ministers to the dead;
Abdel Qadir Gilani
, even the Master, shall not save me.
From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century) .
GHAZAL OF MIRA
The world passes, nothing lasts, and the creation of men
Is buried alive under the vault of Time. ”

“ Six geese drop one by one into the shivering lake;
They say "Peeng" and then after a long time, "Peeng,"
Swimming out softly to the moon.
Three of the balancing dancing geese are dim and black,
And three are white and clear because of the moon;
In what explanatory dawn will our souls
Be seen to be the same? ”

“ And that I am cheerful with your head on my breast,
You know you please me by disliking one friend;
You read up what amuses me in the papers.
Who knows me knows I am not of those fools
That gets tired of a woman who is kind to them,
Yet you know not how stifled you render me
By learning me so well, how I long to see
An unpractised girl under your clever phlegm,
A soul not so letter-perfect in the rules.
From the Arabic of John Duncan.
OKHOUAN
A mole shows black
Between her mouth and cheek.
As if a negro,
Coming into a garden,
Wavered between a purple rose
And a scarlet camomile. ”

“ Your voice brings back the songs
Of every nest,
Your eyes bring back the sun
Out of the South,
Violets and roses peep
Where you have laughed the snow away
And kissed the snow away,
And in my heart there is a garden still
For the lost birds.
Song of Daghestan.
GEORGIA PART OF A GHAZAL
Lonely rose out-splendouring legions of roses,
How could the nightingales behold you and not sing?
By Rustwell of Georgia (from the Tariel, twelfth century) .
HINDUSTAN FARD
Love brings the tiny sweat into your hair
Like stars marching in the dead of night. ”

“ My heart is torn by the tyranny of women very quietly;
Day and night my tears are wearing away my cheeks very quietly.
Life is a red thing like the sun setting very quietly;
Setting quickly and heavily and very quietly.
If you are to buy heaven by a good deed, to-day the market is open;
To-morrow is a day when no man buys ”

“ From the Arabic of John Duncan.
NIGHT AND MORNING
The great brightness of the burning of the stars,
Little frightened love,
Is like your eyes,
When in the heavy dusk
You question the dark blue shadows,
Fearing an evil. ”

“ She has circled me with the black magic of her brows
And shot small arrows at me.
The black curl that lies upon her temple
Is a scorpion pointing his needle at the stars.
Her eyes seem tight, tight shut;
But I believe she is awake.
From the Arabic of Yazid Ebn Moauia (seventh century) .
MOALLAKA
The poets have muddied all the little fountains.
Yet do not my strong eyes know you, far house?
O dwelling of Abla in the valley of Gawa,
Speak to me, for my camel and I salute you.
My camel is as tall as a tower, and I make him stand
And give my aching heart to the wind of the desert. ”

“ I fill the world with pomp and take my pleasure;
I make men run up and down before me,
And am not as young a girl as you pretend.
I am of Iran, of a powerful house, I am pure steel.
I hear that I am spoken of in Lahore."
I have seen a small proud face brimming with sunlight.
I also hear that they speak of you in Lahore,
You walk with a joyous step,
Your nails are red and the palms of your hands are rosy.
A pear-tree with a fresh stem is in your palace gardens,
I would not that your mother should give my pear-tree
To twine with an evil spice-tree or fool banana. ”

“ I'll send my bullet to the fairest heart
That ever lady loved with in the world.
My hand upon the sword
Shall be so strong,
He'll find the little laughing place
Where you dance in my breast;
And we'll have no more of the silly world
Where our lips must lie apart.
We'll let death pour our souls
Into one cup,
And mount like joyous birds to God
With hearts on fire,
And God will mingle us into one shape
In an eternal garden of gold stars.
Love Ballad of the Caucasus.
CHINA WE WERE TWO GREEN RUSHES
We were two green rushes by opposing banks,
And the small stream ran between. ”

“ 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) .
A REQUEST
When I am cold and undesirous and my lids lie dead,
Come to watch by the body that loved you and say:
This is
Rondagui
, whom I killed and my heart regrets for ever.
From the Persian of Rondagui (tenth century) .
SEE YOU HAVE DANCERS
See you have dancers and wine and a girl like one of the angels
(If they exist) ”

“ Ensnared this heart that did not try to guard,
Ever I have a great pain in my heart that's lost.
You do not want me, Zohrah.
Kazack poem of the Chief Gahuan-Beyg (1850-1885) .
KOREA TEARS
How can a heart play any more with life,
After it has found a woman and known tears?
In vain I shut my windows against the moonlight;
I have estranged sleep.
The flower of her face is growing in the shadow
Among warm and rustling leaves....
I see the sunlight on her house,
I see her curtains of vermilion silk.... ”

“ THE LOVE NIGHTS OF LAOS, "Wan-Pak" Nights, at the eighth evening of the waxing or waning of the moon, when even Buddha has no fault to find with love-making in the thickets. Songs, of which I have translated three, are sung on these nights to the accompaniments of the "Khane," a pan-pipe of seven flutes; some being reserved for the singing of the wandering bands of girls, and others for answer by the youths.
PERSIA
THE ROSES, this rubai made Abu Yshac famous. ”

“ JOHN DUNCAN was a lowland Scot, who lived in Edinburgh until he was between twenty and twenty-five years old. He was educated at one of the Scots schools, and knew his way about the University if he was not actually a student there. He certainly had enough money to live on. A love affair in which he must have been infamously treated caused him to leave Scotland. ”

“ As we are dying.
From the Japanese of the Wife of Bes-syo Ko-saburo Naga-haru, (sixteenth century) .
GREEN FOOD FOR A QUEEN
I was gathering
Leaves of the
Wakana
In springtime.
Why did the snow fall
On my dress?
From the Japanese of the Mikado Ko-ko Ten-no, (ninth century) .
THE CUSHION
Your arm should only be
A spring night's dream;
If I accepted it to rest my head upon
There would be rumours
And no delight.
From the Japanese of the daughter of Taira-no Tsu-gu-naka.
A SINGLE NIGHT
Was one night,
And that a night
Without much sleep,
Enough to make me love
All the life long? ”

“ And the girl married the Archer Prince whose love kissed the
buds of fire that scented the clear breeze that lifted the
veil of the love of the son of the Khan.
Street Song of Thibet.
TURKESTAN DISTICH
Your face upon a drop of purple wine
Shows like my soul poised on a bead of blood.
From the Turkic of Hussein Baikrani.
THINGS SEEN IN A BATTLE
Clear diamond heart,
I have been hunting death
Among the swords.
But death abhors my shadow,
And I come back
Wounded with memories.
Your eyes,
For steel is amorous of steel
And there are bright blue sparks. ”

“ ANTAR, the hero Antar Ebn Cheddad Ebn Amr Corad, who lived in the late sixth and early seventh centuries, owes his European reputation to Siret Antar, the Adventures of Antar, or more exactly the Conduct of Antar, written by Abul-Moyyed "El Antari" in the twelfth century. ”

“ The Bamboo Garden
Stranger Things have Happened
Nocturne
The Gao Flower
The Girl of Ke-Mo
The Little Woman of Clear River
Waiting to Marry a Student
A Song for Two
ARABIC
Sand
Two Similes
Melodian
The Lost Lady
Love Brown and Bitter
Okhouan
Lying Down Alone
Old Greek Lovers
Night and Morning
In a Yellow Frame
Because the Good are Never Fair
White and Green and Black Tears
A Conceit
Values
What Love Is
The Dancing Heart
The Great Offence
An Escape
Three Queens
Her Nails
Perturbation at Dawn
The Resurrection of the Tattooed Girl
Moallaka of Antar
Moallaka of Amr Ebn Kultum ”

“ This book tells of the fighter's feats in war and of his love for his cousin Abla; and these are the themes of Antar's own poems.
AN ESCAPE: in this poem Abu Nuas, the Court poet, tells of an adventure of the Khalif Haroun. There is a story that the Khalif, being set back by the answer of his lady, called his poets in the morning and bade them write a poem round the phrase, "Words of a night to bring the day." All were rewarded for their work save Abu Nuas ”