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LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW COPENHAGEN NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE CAPE TOWN BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS SHANGHAI PEKING 1921
PRINTED IN ENGLAND AT THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS BY FREDERICK HALL
THE last fifteen pieces in this book, which are founded on odes of Hafez, are not translations. Their aim is rather to convey if possible something of the original spirit than to give a faithful rendering of either thought or form; & I have not scrupled to omit, insert, alter or even deliberately to pervert the idea as fancy or feeling dictated. Some of the poems follow the Persian fairly closely (especially nos. 30, 31, 34, & 35); others are merely founded on or suggested by one or two couplets.
No. 4 was suggested by a Persian dialect quatrain by Baba Tahir.
When sunlight faileth, & day’s glow is gone; When chill mist traileth Where warm splendour shone;
When summer’s pleasure Dieth,—dieth too The transient treasure That with life up-grew
& none may herit, Where then wilt thou turn, O vagrant spirit, That no home didst earn;
When none replieth Of thy friends so true, When sweet Joy crieth ‘Adieu, love, adieu!’
I called to fading day As o’er the hill she flew, ‘Whither, glad light, away? Take me, O take me too!’ She said, ‘O wingless one, Thou hast thy memoried sun’.
I said to the droop’d rose Awhile that was so fair, ‘Why dost so swiftly lose, Sweet grace, thy blooming air?’ She said, ‘This is my doom; Cherish thou beauty’s tomb’.
I cried to Joy as late I stood, bidding farewell, ‘Must this be too thy fate Whom I have loved so well? He said, ‘My gift I leave With her whom I bereave’.
O youth’s young cloudlet, O freshness free, With heart so light on the winds to fly Or glisten in spray up-scatter’d,—I Am sad as the full surgings of the sea; I gave thee birth, thou shalt return to me.
Thy heart is light as the empty wind Of barren purposeless change,—but I Am the thought-burden’d slow-searching mind: I am the agony to form & find;— The fluxing travail of eternity.
Wend I, wander I, past all worlds that be; Ever have I wander’d or e’er the earth was made; Urg’d like the álien áir o’er land & sea, Sleepless as sunlight, joyless as its shade.