Works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Page 287
As it onward hies; —
Crush’d by ocean’s stern decree,
Wreck’d it straightway lies.
Tow’rd thee, songs, light, graceful, free,
Mount with cooling gush;
Then their glow consumeth me,
As like fire they rush.
Yet a thought with ecstasy
Hath my courage mov’d;
In the land of melody
I have liv’d and lov’d.
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FETWA.
THE Mufti read Misri’s verses cherish’d! —
Each one deliberately in succession,
And gave them to the flames’ possession;
And thus the costly book entirely perish’d.
“May flames consume the man whoe’er believeth
And speaketh as this Misri! He alone” —
Thus spoke the judge severe — ”shall not atone
In fire: the poet gifts from God receiveth,
And if in traffic of his sins he use them,
Let him beware lest he shall sadly lose them.
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Uschk Nameh.
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BOOK OF LOVE.
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THE TYPES.
Hear and in memory bear
These six fond loving pair.
Love, when arous’d, kept true
Rustan and Rodawu!
Strangers approach from far
Jussuf and Suleika;
Love, void of hope, is in
Ferhad and Schirin.
Born for each other are
Medschnun and Leila;
Loving, though old and gray,
Dschemil saw Boteinah.
Love’s sweet caprice anon,
Brown maid and Solomon!
If thou dost mark them well,
Stronger thy love will swell.
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ONE PAIR MORE.
LOVE is indeed a glorious prize!
What fairer guerdon meets our eyes? —
Though neither wealth nor power are thine,
A very hero thou dost shine.
As of the prophet, they will tell
Wamik and Asra’s tale as well. —
They’ll tell not of them, — they’ll but give
Their names, which now are all that live.
The deeds they did, the toils they prov’d
No mortal knows! But that they lov’d
This know we. Here’s the story true
Of Wamik and of Asra too.
Love’s torments sought a place of rest,
Where all might drear and lonely be;
They found ere long my desert breast,
And nestled in its vacancy.
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MYSTERY.
IN my sweetheart’s eyes the people
Find perpetual cause for wonder.
I who know the meaning of it
Can explain it without blunder.
For it means: “This is my lover,”
Not to this and that one turning:
Therefore, worthy people, hearken,
Cease your wonder, cease your yearning
Yea, with secret force prodigious
Round the circle she is glancing,
Yet she only seeks to tell him
Of the coming hour entrancing.
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IT WAS SHE.
YES, the lips that kiss’d me were her lips,
Hers the eyes that shone upon me.
Body round and slender hips, —
All of Eden’s joyance won me.
Was she there? where has she fled?
Yes! ’twas she, my soul enraptur’d,
Gave me life, and as she sped
Held my life forever captur’d.
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MOST MYSTERIOUS.
“WE assiduous gossip-mongers
Fain would know thy sweetheart’s hiding,
And if thou deceivest also
Many husbands too confiding.
“For we see thou art a lover,
And thy fortune we would covet;
But that thou could’st find a mistress,
Not a word believe we of it!”
Seek her, if ye please, my masters,
None will hinder; yet this learn ye:
Ye will tremble at her presence;
Gone, her loss will much concern ye.
If ye know how Shehab-ed-din
Dropp’d on Arafat his raiment,
Ye would never call him foolish
Who for wisdom was a claimant!
If thy name before thou diest
Should be spoken to thy monarch,
Should be spoken to thy mistress,
Count it ‘mid thy honors highest!
Thus it show’d the bitterest sorrow,
When the dying Medschnun will’d it
That his name henceforth for Leila
Should be dead, and men fulfill’d it.
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Teskir Nameh.
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BOOK OF CONTEMPLATION.
HEARKEN the word the harp sings! Yet unless
Thou art well skill’d, thou need’st not try.
The wisest counsel is foolishness
To the hearer who hears awry!
“What sings then the harp?” Its counsel is plain: —
“The fairest bride is not the bride to gain;
Yet will we not reckon thee among the choicest
Unless at Fairest and Best thou rejoicest!”
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FIVE THINGS.
WHAT makes time short to me?
Activity!
What makes it long and spiritless?
’Tis idleness!
What brings us to debt?
To delay and forget!
What makes us succeed?
Decision with speed!
How to fame to ascend?
Oneself to defend!
For woman due allowance make!
Form’d of a crooked rib was she, —
By Heaven she could not straight’ned be.
Attempt to bend her, and she’ll break;
If left alone, more crooked grows madam;
What well could be worse, my good friend, Adam? —
For woman due allowance make;
‘Twere grievous, if thy rib should break!
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TO SHAH SHEDSHAA AND HIS LIKE.
THROUGH the Trans Oxus throng,
With arms victorious,
In boldness seeks our song
Thy pathway glorious!
We have no fear of wrong
If thou defend us!
Long be thy life and long
Thy reign tremendous!
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HIGHEST FAVOR.
THOUGH I was untam’d and wild,
Yet a master I have found;
Years had pass’d ere I grew mild,
Yet a mistress I have found;
They have put me to the test,
Faithful I have still been found;
With their care I have been bless’d
As the treasure they had found.
No one ever served two lords
And a decent fortune found;
Master, mistress each affords
Proof in me their joy is found;
And my joy’s too deep for words,
That I both of them have found.
Through many countries I have been,
And mostly throngs of men have seen;
But the hidden corners I ever have sought,
And every holm great joy has brought,
The blessed city, none seen besides;
Houris and houris, brides and brides.
Whence come I hither? ’tis a puzzling story.
My earthward path is scarcely known to me,
But now and here this day of heav’nly glory
Like bosom friends meet joy and misery.
O blissful Fate, if they are wedded only!
Laughter and tears who can enjoy when lonely?
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FIRDUSI SPEAKS.
O world, with what baseness and guilt thou art rife!
Thou nurturest, trainest, and killest the while.
He only whom Allah doth bless with his smile
Is train’d and is nurtur’d with riches and life.
What then is wealth? A sun that is warming.
The beggar enjoys it as we find our joyance;
So let not the opulent find annoyance
In a joy, the beggar’s property forming.
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DSHELAL-ED-DIN RUMI SPEAKS.
WHILE thou art here the world flies like a dream,
Thou journeyest, space all bewitched doth seem.
Or cold or heat thy pow’r it cannot hold;
Thy flowers will wither and joys grow old.
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SULEIKA SPEAKS.
THE mirror tells me, I am fair!
Thou sayest, to grow old my fate will be.
Naught in God’s presence changeth e’er, —
Love Him, for this one moment, then, in me.
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Rendsch Nameh.
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BOOK OF GLOOM.
IT is a fault oneself to praise,
And yet ’tis done by each whose deeds are kind;
And if there’s no deceit in what he says,
The good we still as good shall find.
Let, then, ye fools, that wise man taste
Of joy, who fancies that he’s wise;
That he, a fool like you, may waste
Th’ insipid thanks the world supplies.
Thou wilt never find a rhymer,
His things not the best averring;
Nor a fiddler who in playing,
His own melodies not preferring.
And I cannot blame them harshly:
If we give the praise to others,
We must lower ourselves to do it,
Do we live as live our brothers.
So I found it very fitting,
In some ante-rooms, bystanders
Could not easily distinguish
Mouse-dung from the corianders.
What has been stirs up vast hatred
In new brooms so full of vigor,
For they can help the impulse,
Acting towards the old with rigor.
And when nations come in conflict,
Each new schemes of war contriving,
Neither of them will acknowledge,
Each for one same thing is striving.
And men blame their fellows harshly
For their brutal selfishness;
While themselves cannot endure it
If another win success.
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Hikmet Nameh.
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BOOK OF PROVERBS.
TALISMANS throughout the book I’d scatter,
For an equipoise they make.
Who the credulous pin will take,
Opening will find, surely find good matter.
From this day, from this night
Ask for naught,
Only what the yesterdays have brought.
The sea is flowing ever,
The land retains it never.
Be stirring, man, while yet the day is clear;
The night when none can work fast draweth near.
When the heavy-laden sigh,
Deeming help and hope gone by,
Oft, with healing power is heard,
Comfort-fraught, a kindly word.
How vast is mine inheritance, how glorious and sublime!
For time mine own possession is, the land I till is time!
Enweri saith, — ne’er lived a man more true;
The deepest heart, the highest head he knew, —
“In ev’ry place and time thou’lt find availing
Uprightness, judgment, kindliness unfailing.”
Though the bards whom the Orient sun hath bless’d
Are greater than we who dwell in the west,
Yet in hatred of those whom our equals we find,
In this we’re not in the least behind.
Would we let our envy burst,
Feed its hunger fully first!
To keep our proper place,
We’ll show our bristles more;
With hawks men all things chase,
Except the savage boar.
By those who themselves more bravely have fought
A hero’s praise will be joyfully told.
The worth of man can only be taught
By those who have suffer’d both heat and cold.
“Wherefore is truth so far from our eyes,
Buried as though in a distant land?”
None at the proper moment are wise!
Could they properly understand,
Truth would appear in her own sweet guise,
Beauteous, gentle, and close at hand.
Why these inquiries make,
Where charity may flow?
Cast in the flood thy cake, —
Its eater, who will know?
Once when I a spider had kill’d,
Then methought: was’t right or wrong?
That we both to these times should belong,
This had God in His goodness will’d.
A man with households twain
Ne’er finds attention meet;
A house wherein two women reign
Is ne’er kept clean and neat.
Bless, thou dread Creator,
Bless this humble fane;
Man may build them greater, —
More they’ll not contain.
Let this house’s glory rise,
Handed to far ages down,
And the son his honor prize,
As the father his renown.
O’er the Mediterranean sea
Proudly hath the Orient sprung;
Who loves Hafis and knows him, he
Knows what Calderon hath sung.
If the ass that bore the Saviour
Were to Mecca driven, he
Would not alter, but would be
Still an ass in his behavior.
The flood of passion storms with fruitless strife,
‘Gainst the unvanquish’d solid land.
It throws poetic pearls upon the strand,
And thus is gain’d the prize of life.
When so many minstrels there are,
How it pains me, alas, to know it!
Who from the earth drives poetry far?
Who but the poet!
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Timur Nameh.
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BOOK OF TIMUR.
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THE WINTER AND TIMUR.
SO the winter now clos’d round them
With resistless fury. Scatt’ring
Over all his breath so icy,
He inflam’d each wind that bloweth
To assail them angrily.
Over them he gave dominion
To his frost-ensharpen’d tempests;
Down to Timur’s council went he,
And with threat’ning voice address’d him: —
“Softly, slowly, wretched being!
Live, the tyrant of injustice;
But shall hearts be scorch’d much longer
By thy flames, — consume before them?
If amongst the evil spirits
Thou art one, — good! I’m another.
Thou a graybeard art — so I am;
Land and men we make to stiffen.
Thou art Mars! And I Saturnus, —
Both are evil-working planets,
When united, horror-fraught.
Thou dost kill the soul, thou freezest
E’en the atmosphere; still colder
Is my breath than thine was ever.
Thy wild armies vex the faithful
With a thousand varying torments;
Well! God grant that I discover
Even worse, before I perish!
And by God, I’ll give thee none.
Let God hear what now I tell thee!
Yes, by God! from Death’s cold clutches
Naught, O graybeard, shall protect thee,
Not the hearth’s broad coalfire’s ardor,
Not December’s brightest flame.”
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TO SULEIKA.
FITTING perfumes to prepare,
And to raise thy rapture high,
Must a thousand rosebuds fair
First in fiery torments die.
One small flask’s contents to glean,
Whose sweet fragrance aye may live,
Slender as thy finger e’en,
Must a world its treasures give;
Yes, a world where life is moving,
Which, with impulse full and strong,
Could forebode the bulbul’s loving,
Sweet, and spirit-stirring song.
Since they thus have swell’d our joy,
Should such torments grieve us, then?
Doth not Timur’s rule destroy
Myriad souls of living men?
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