by Unknown
*
My heart, sit down, welcome love’s pain,
and make the best of it:
The rose is gone, the thorns remain,
so make the best of it.
My heart said, “No! I can’t endure
this sadness any longer . . .”
I said, “You’ve no choice, don’t complain,
just make the best of it.”
*
I feel so heartsick. Should my doctor hear,
He’ll sigh and groan and want to interfere:
Come on now, dearest, heal me, you know how
To make my doctor’s headache disappear.
*
Always, whatever else you do, my heart
Try to be kind, try to be true, my heart:
And if he’s faithless, all may yet be well—
Who knows what he might do? Not you, my heart.
*
Shiraz when spring is here—what pleasure equals this?
With streams to sit by, wine to drink, and lips to kiss,
With mingled sounds of drums and lutes and harps and flutes;
Then, with a nice young lover near, Shiraz is bliss.
*
My heart, if you have words you need to say,
Be warned! Keep would-be confidants away.
Seek help from no one here: five times a day
The entrance to His court stands open. Pray.
*
I know you think that there are other friends for me than you:
Not so.
And that apart from loving you I’ve other things to do:
Not so.
Belovèd, out of pity, take my hand before I fall,
You think the world can give me other loves to cling on to?
Not so.
You strike me like a harp, play on me like a flute—and now
You have the nerve to say that I have had enough of you?
Not so.
What heavy sorrows weigh me down, and crush my abject soul—
Could anything be harder than your absence to live through?
Not so.
Your eyes are languorous and rob my wakeful eyes of sleep,
Are any curls as wild as yours, as lovely and untrue?
Not so.
You say my heart has not been hurt by your disdain. It has.
Has any lover suffered love’s despair as I do now for you?
Not so.
You have so many slaves, all finer than I am, I know—
But can you point to one more wretched in your retinue?
Not so.
*
When someone is imprisoned for a while12
Men ask about his fate, and want to know his crimes;
If someone accidentally says my name
Fear makes him beg to be excused, a thousand times.
*
A picnic at the desert’s edge, with witty friends,
And tambourines, and harps, and lutes, is very sweet.
And if my lover, for a moment, should drop by
I’d grill his liver with my body’s fiery heat!13
*
Come here a moment, sit with me, don’t sleep tonight,
Consider well my heart’s unhappy plight, tonight;
And let your face’s presence lighten me, and give
The loveliness of moonlight to the night, tonight.
Be kind now to this stranger, and don’t imitate
Life as it leaves me in its headlong flight, tonight.
Be sweet to me now as your eyes are sweet, don’t twist
Away now like your curls, to left and right, tonight;
Don’t sweep me from you like the dust before your door;
Dowse all the flames of longing you ignite, tonight.
Why do you treat me with such cruelty now, my friend,
So that my tears obliterate my sight, tonight?
If, for a moment, I could see you in my dreams
I’d know the sum of all this world’s delight, tonight.
*
Here, in the corner of a ruined school
(More ruined even than my heart), I wait
While men declare that there’s no goodness in me.
I sit alone, and brood upon my fate,
And hear their words, like salt rubbed in my wounds,
And tell myself I must accept my state:
I don’t want wealth, and I don’t envy them
The ostentatious splendor of the great.
What do they want from me though, since I’ve nothing?
Now that I’m destitute, and desolate?14
*
How long will heaven’s heartless tyranny
Which keeps both rich and poor in agony
Go on? The dreadful happenings of these times
Have torn up by the roots Hope’s noble tree,
And in the garden of the world you’d say
They’ve stripped the leaves as far as one can see.
That cypress which was once the cynosure15
Of souls, they’ve toppled ignominiously;
I cry to heaven above, again I cry—
How long will this injustice fall on me?
What can I tell my grieving heart that won’t
Let dearest friends assuage its misery?
You’d say heaven’s stuffed its ears with scraps of cotton
Simply to show that it’s ignoring me!
*
Most people in the world want power and money,
And just these two; that’s all they’re looking for.
They’re faithless, callous, and unkind—the times
Are filled with squabbles, insurrections, war,
And everyone puts caution first, since now
Few friends exist of whom one can be sure.
Men flee from one another like scared deer,
And for a bit of bread the rabble roar
As though they’d tear each other’s guts apart.
And why are men determined to ignore
The turning of the heavens, which must mean
The world will change, as it has done before?
But in their souls they are Your slaves, and search
The meadows for the cypress they adore;16
My heart’s an untamed doe, who haunts Your hills,
And whom no noose has ever snared before.
*
My friend, who was so kind and faithful once,
Has changed his mind now, and I don’t know why;
I think it must be in my wretched stars—
He feels no pity for me when I cry.
Oh I complain of your cruel absence, but
Your coming here’s like dawn’s breeze in the sky;
That oath you swore to and then broke—thank God
It’s you who swore, and is foresworn, not I!
I didn’t snatch one jot of joy before
You snatched your clothes from me and said goodbye;
I didn’t thank you, since I wasn’t sure
You’d really been with me, or just passed by.
How envious our clothes were when we lay
Without them, clasped together, you and I!
Your curls have chained my heart up; this is right—
Madmen are chained up, as they rage and sigh.
They say the world’s lord cherishes his slaves;17
So why’s he harsh to me? I don’t know why.
*
A happy heart’s the place for plans and piety,
And wealth’s a fine foundation for sobriety:
A weak and wasted arm can’t wiel
d a warrior’s sword,
A broken heart can’t act with cold propriety.
*
I didn’t know my value then, when I
Was young, so long ago;
And now that I have played my part out here,
What is it that I know?
I know that, now that both of them have gone,
Life’s good and bad passed by
As quickly in my youth as dawn’s first breeze
Forsakes the morning sky.
How many ardent birds of longing then
Were lured down from the air
By my two ringlets’ curls and coils, to be
Held trapped and helpless there!
And in youth’s lovely orchard then I raised
My head as prettily,
As gracefully, above the greensward there,
As any cypress tree;
Until, with charming partners to oppose me,
I took up lovers’ chess,
And lost so many of love’s pieces to
My partners’ handsomeness—
And then how often on the spacious field
Of beauty I urged on
My hopeful heart’s untiring steed, always
Pursuing what was gone.
Now, as no shoots or leaves remain to me
From youth, and youth’s delight,
I fit myself in my old age to face
The darkness of the night.
*
Laughing, the rose said to the nightingale one day,
“How long will you keep up this constant racket, pray?
I’m leaving here, I’ll pack and I’ll be on my way . . .”
Now don’t you get ideas from what these roses say!
*
I am still drunk that you were here,
and you were mine,
And once again I stretch my hand out
for that wine;
As your drunk eyes could not bestir
themselves, I too
Can’t move; as you love wine, I love
the wine that’s you.
And I will ask the gentle morning
breeze to bear
A message to my love who has
such musky hair,
Since that black hair’s sweet scent, from being
next to me,
Has made me like a musk deer come
from Tartary.18
I fainted when you were not here,
I could not stand—
Be with me now, my love, support me,
grasp my hand;
Oh I was so distracted, heartsick,
that I gave
My soul into your ringlets’ snare,
I was your slave;
My eyes wept tears of blood while you
were never there,
My feet were shackled in your curls’
enclosing snare.
How sad my heart was then! But, God
be praised, relief
Has now arrived for me; I have
escaped from grief!
*
Your face usurps the fiery glow and hue
of roses;
And with your face here, what have I to do
with roses?
Your ringlets’ fragrance is so sweet, my friend,
No fragrant rose-scent could entice me to
seek roses—
Besides, the faithless roses’ scent will fade,
Which is a serious drawback, in my view,
of roses;
And if the waters of eternal life
Had touched their roots, so that they bloomed anew,
these roses,
When could they ever form a bud as sweet
As your small mouth, which is more trim and true
than roses?
*
Tonight my heart’s a bird that longs to dare
To fly to one place, and to hover there . . .
I told her, “Don’t go flying to his street now,
Begging’s the one thing that our king can’t bear.”
*
They say the man I love, my heart’s delight,
Is ugly. They believe that? Well, they might . . .
No one but I could bear this weight of love—
That they don’t find him handsome’s only right.
*
For most of these long nights I stay awake
And go to bed as dawn begins to break;
I think that eyes that haven’t seen their friend
Might get some sleep then . . . this is a mistake.
*
At dawn my heart said I should go
Into the garden where
I’d pick fresh flowers, and hope to see
His flower-like beauty there.
I took his hand in mine, and oh
How happily we strayed
Among the tulip beds, and through
Each pretty grassy glade;
How sweet the tightness of his curls
Seemed then, and it was bliss
To grasp his fingers just as tight,
And snatch a stealthy kiss.
For me to be alone beside
That slender cypress tree
Cancels the thousand injuries
He’s meted out to me
He’s a narcissus, tall and straight!
And so how sweet to bow
My head like violets at his feet
And kiss the earth there now.
But your drunk eyes don’t deign to see me,
Although I really think
It’s easy to see someone who’s
The worse for love or drink.
And though it’s good to weep beneath
God’s cloud of clement rain,
It’s also good to laugh like flowers
When sunlight shines again.
My heart was hurt by his “checkmate”;
I think I must prepare
To seek out wider pastures then,
And wander off elsewhere.
Jahan, be careful not to say
Too much; it’s pitiful
To give a jewel to someone who
Can’t see it’s valuable.
*
An elegy on the death of her infant daughter:
Your heart a rosebush, and your soul a cypress,
Sweet pleasure’s bud, fruit worthy of the spirit,
And I, a mother now without her child,
Denied life’s joy, and all life should inherit.
How men loved seeing what they’d never seen
Till—like a fairy’s child—she slipped from sight;
Don’t criticize me when I weep, but think
How Jacob wept for Joseph day and night.19
What wound is this, whose only balm is tears?
What pain, whose cure’s lamenting and distress?
I weep a flowing river, and Oman
Has never seen these pearls that soak my dress.
While I have eyes within my head, and while
My tongue is in my mouth, I’ll always see
Her image in my eyes, and by my tongue
Her name will be repeated constantly.
This grief’s so scorched my heart that when I’m dust
That dust will show my sorrow all too well;
My house that was a shining paradise
Is darker now than any dungeon cell.
My heart was like a home that welcomed pleasure,
Now only grief comes knocking at its door;
My suffering heart has borne so much it’s like
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A storm-tossed boat that cannot reach the shore.
Prepare to quit this wretched hovel here,
When autumn comes the nightingales are leaving;
It’s Fate that heaps these sorrows on our heads,20
You can’t say Time’s to blame when you are
grieving.
*
Another poem on the same theme:
My heart’s new rose was snatched from me, and grief21
Replaced her, given by the hand of Fate—
But then my eyes saw Rezvan’s kindness when,22
As she approached, he opened heaven’s gate.
*
Another poem on the same theme:
My heart will take no drug to dull this pain,
The seal of sorrow’s set, and will remain:
My heart could never tire of your sweet presence,
Absence is all my life can now contain.
*
Look at this garden of the world
To see what it devises next
And whose fate, out of all our fates,
The world revises next
To see just who it is who’ll drink
The draught of Being that brings night,
And who will suffer here hungover
In morning’s light
To see whose foot will step into
The snare that snapped shut means disaster,
On whose hand it bestows the jewels
That make him master
To see whose lucky ears will hear
The noble psalms that David sang,23
Whose bitter soul will be consumed
By sorrow’s pang
To see how many of our friends
It will at last consign to dust,
Counting off lovely girls as well,
Since it needs must
To see whose garden grows with hope
Until it glitters tulip-red,
Whose rosebush bears no buds, but only
Sharp thorns instead
To see how many changeless Fate24
Throws down from thrones into the grave,
To see whose star of fortune now
Begins to fade25
*
The roses have all gone; “Goodbye,” we say; we must;
And I shall leave the busy world one day; I must.
My little room, my books, my love, my sips of wine,
All these are dear to me, they’ll pass away; they must.
*
I’ll leave this wretched hovel26 when You tell me to
And then—perhaps—my heart’s grief will be cleansed by You;
May all the tangled knots that have beset my life
Be tangled knots Your mercy prompts You to undo.27
Mehri
Fourteenth/fifteenth century
Also known as Mehr al-Nissa or Mehri-ye Heravi, she was an intimate of the Timurid empress Gowhar Shad, who was married to Shahrokh, the ruler of an empire that stretched from Herat to Samarqand. When Shahrokh died in 1447, Gowhar Shad became de facto ruler of the empire until her own death, when she was over eighty, in 1457.