Dīvān-i Maḫfī - The Tears of Zebunnisa (Whaley)

RISE from the far dim East and the mouldered pomp of the Moguls,

Daughter of Aurangzeb, priestess and martyr of Love!

Dawn as a lone bright star in the infinite gloom of the heavens,

Throbbing with love and shedding around thee the music of night.

Sweet as the voice of the bulbul that whispers its woes to the twilight

Come to us out of the ages the echoes of songs thou hast sung.

LORD! to the faithful grant his heart’s desire;

O scourge no more this tortured breast with fire.

Thou art far off. O bring me nigh to Thee;

Weak am I and perplexed. O set me free.

From the abyss of sin in which I dwell,

Draw me, as erst Thy Joseph from the well.

Let not my tears fall wasted in the sand;

Gather them up, kind Lord, into Thy hand.

And from the ashes of my sorrow past

Bring Thou the flowers of hope to bloom at last.

I DRINK the wine of Thy sweet lips. My star

Mounts to the zenith now that Thou art come.

My heart and eyes are Thine, mine eyes that feed

Upon Thy motions. Sleep is sin to-night.

Thine eyebrow is the Easter moon, Thy face

The lamp of heaven. Rapture fills the sky

And all the erewhile darkness is at once

Illumined, for the Moon of my desire

Gives the full goblet, pledging me,—and all,

Sun, moon and firmament are mine to-night.

LIFT the veil that hides Thy splendour, Moon of all that’s fair and sweet;

Till the sun, ashamed and vanquished, bow his head upon Thy feet.

Gracious God! how can I live, condemned to solitary woes,

Grief prevailing, groans and wailing, courage failing, hosts of foes;

All the guerdon of my worship this, to spend my life in sighs,

Fevered lips and rent apparel, broken heart and streaming eyes.

All my soul is given to love Thee and the meed of my desire

Tears unceasing, woes increasing, molten heart and brain on fire.

Yet, if fate should crown my hopes, then, then as long as life remains,

Every day the sun brings round shall overpay a year of pains.

HARD it is to live without Thee,

Hard to brave Thy cold disdain,

Hard to check the burst of weeping,

Harder still a smile to feign.

Hard it is to sit and listen

To Thy taunts; more hard to fly.

Life is death without Thy presence,

Not to gaze on Thee’s to die.

Vain it is to shun Thee; vainly

Would I strive Thy scorn to slight;

Once beholding Thee is madness,

Reason lives not in Thy sight.

’S IST MIR ALLES EINS.

MAJNŪN’S path in love I tread;

Barren earth may be my bed,

Or silken pillows prop my head;

’Tis all one to me.

Majnūn left his house and home

Through the desert wastes to roam;

Lacquered roof or heaven’s dome,

’Tis all one to me.

Give me in the wild to dwell,

Or where Jaihun’s waters well;

Sun-scorched sands or verdant dell,

’Tis all one to me.

Many a bitter draught is mine

While in solitude I pine;

Sweet and bitter, wormwood, wine,

’Tis all one to me.

Wine may flow, and tears may rain;

Love alone can still my pain;

Wine and tears alike are vain.

’Tis all one to me.

THE MYSTIC’S CHOICE.

MINE be pure love, love that pursues his hest

Through wild and desert; mine the lone lament

The heart of Majnūn and his weary quest,

And tears and raiment rent.

Mine be the toil that overtasks the breath,

The cry of pain, the agony of strife,

The life that only lives to long for death,

For death more dear than life.

Mine be the wine of love, the deadly wine

That floods like lava all the seething brain,

Leaving the lips unslaked; fell draught, be mine,

My medicine and my bane.

Mine be the shame, if others deem it shame,

To love unloved, nor falter, suffering wrong,

Until beneath the earth my fame and name

Be buried and my song.

MY veins are aflame with the molten rays of Thy beauty,

Thy love is infused as marrow and life in my bones.

Bold as the Huma my muse on adventurous pinions

Soars to the azure and poises aloft in the skies.

Hold me not low in esteem, for the secrets of heaven

Stream unrestrained from my lips when they open in song.

Why should I strive for fame, or wrestle for glory,

I who have scarcely a name and no mark in the world?

I stand in the halls of life, a motionless statue,

Love of the Yea and the Nay is the lamp of my home.

Slack is the trade of the poet, the market of science,

Here in my coffers is stored the wealth of the worlds.

List to the bulbul that sings in the garden, O Makhfi,

His passionate threnody is but the echo of mine.

WITHIN my bosom stirs once more to-night

A voice of song. Love, erewhile slumbering,

Intones his mystery, and the flowers of spring

Relive and bloom. Winter, forbear to smite

My heart’s late flowers. Listen! From left and right

Through the green boughs the bulbul’s note is heard,

And, wing-clipt and imprisoned, my heart’s bird

Flutters against his barriers, wild for flight.

IS it not Spring? Behold us quit

Of irksome vows of penitence!

Ecstatic love’s awakening sense

Shall break the bonds that fettered it.

If to the mosque thy steps incline

With pious thoughts and robe of prayer,

The arching eyebrows of the fair

Will dim the arches of the shrine.

But ah, how transient the delight

Our days of wine and roses bring:

Dark autumn follows on the spring

And puts our revelries to flight.

The breeze that wooed the budding rose,

And kissed its petals into bloom,

Comes hurtling back in gusts and gloom,

And brings its glory to a close.

DWELL thou in sorrow’s house. Be sure

There is no choicer spot on earth,

And silent tears are better worth

Than wine a wounded heart to cure.

O moth, why flutter round the gleam

Of lamps that desecrate the night?

Rest here within the placid light

Where moonbeams on the cottage dream.

And shouldst thou then a cordial need

To warm the heart and fire the brain,

List to the watchwords that obtain

Among the brethren of our creed.

“Love, wine, and roses, blissful ease,”—

On suchlike themes the converse rolls

That bears aloft discerning souls,

Expert the inward sense to seize.

What if the heart’s consuming fire

Should burn away its earthly shell?

Shall not the lover deem it well

To doff the bonds that balk desire?

LOVE, the marauder, ties to his saddle bow

Many a scalp of his slaughtered foes;

Lo! with the blood of mankind hath he painted

On the earth’s forehead a crimson rose.

A WASTED LIFE.

LIFE passes by, a caravan of shadows,

Leaving no track or voice upon its way;

Only the torch of beauty, where it flashes,

Spreads in the world disaster and dismay.

Ah, the long months I followed after Mahmil,

In the dim desert guideless and astray;

Spring changed to autumn. Never on the rose-branch

Carolled my heart-bird an enraptured lay.

Farhad, his pick amid the mountains plying,

Drew from the rock a sigh at every stroke;

Makhfi, for all the flames her heart is flinging,

Sees not arise an answering wreath of smoke.

UNREST.

LOVE’S my master: till his tether

Bring my Love and me together

Like a reed in windy weather

Swayed about, I cannot rest.

Here to-day and there to-morrow,

Bearing still a load of sorrow,

Tell me, friends, whence can I borrow

Peace and calm? I cannot rest.

From my eyes the tears are raining,

From my heart the blood is draining,

All my feeble life is waning

To its close. I cannot rest.

IN beauty’s realm Thou sitt’st the crownèd lord;

The fair ones kiss Thy feet. Thy locks no hand

May reach to,—all too high uplifted stand

The bases of Thy throne. Those tresses poured

About Thy moonlike face have all adored,

Muslim and pagan, every sect and creed.

Should the less beautiful pay beauty’s meed

Such tribute Joseph’s self must fain accord.

Is not my heart already bound to Thee,

Hence with it from the body? Calm the fears

Of innocence; kindle the lamp that cheers,

And not the blood-red torch of tyranny.

See, Makhfi, from the tempest of my tears

My breast is heaving like a stormy sea.

THINE the gracious dews that render

Herb and flower fair and bright!

Thine th’ eternal fount of splendour

Whence the suns derive their light!

When Thy mercy like a river

Surges from its mighty source,

Ramparts of rebellion shiver

Into ruin in its course.

Tears may rain and sighs may welter

Round Thy path in heaven and earth;

Save for those Thy favours shelter

Tears and sighs are little worth.

All the universe about Thee

Is replete with life and glee;

Seas and skies and earth without Thee

Are but empty symmetry.

We have left behind the regions

Where terrestrial sorrows reign;

Onward march our martyr legions

Insusceptible of pain.

Sing, Makhfi, sing on, nor falter;

In the garden of our dream

O’er all change of hymn and psalter

Rules the love-bird’s note supreme.

EARLY RISING.

THE breath of the dawn is the breath of Messiah the Healer;

Shame on the sluggard that wakes not to welcome the dawn.

Great is the sun, but let night have her meed of honour,

Since it is she that kindles the lamp of the dawn.

Are we not bulbuls of love? Arise, let us gather

The rose that awakes to the breezes that herald the dawn.

NO soul is that which only warms with wine;

The true soul kindles to this flute of mine.

The cold hearts cling to earth; the living fly

Rapt and uplifted to the shout, “Ya Hai!”

One step beyond the world and its renown

Thy beggar’s cap turns to a kingly crown.

The road is perilous; far and hid from view

The goal. What hand shall lead me safely through?

The bricks are falling from life’s crumbling towers;

Ruin is near, and who shall count the hours?

Though here in India lapped in peace I lie,

Nearer my heart are those sweet bowers of Rai.

Cold, without feast, the long, long night has passed.

Makhfi, hope on. Thy time shall come at last.

SOULS that have harboured grief look askance on frolic and laughter:

Theirs is a joy that is hidden under surroundings of woe.

Live in the hope of reunion, and though your existence be lonely,

Still you can live, though life totter and reel to its base.

Counsellor, chide not my weeping. In tears is the dew that refreshes,

Glad is the garden of longing when fed with the water of tears.

Banquets are void of delight if ungraced by the smile of the Dear One,

Yea, though the winecup be Jam’s and the wine be the water of life.

Makhfi, be patient awhile and endure thy loneliness, knowing

He who endures to the end shall inherit the guerdon of joy.

WHEN hope decays all pleasures cease to please;

Odious are love and power, and wealth and ease.

The dainty rose joys in the air to sway,

While listening to the bulbul’s murmured lay,

But when the gardener chides the bulbul flees,

Then weary seems the rocking of the breeze.

When fortune frowns, and he to whom I turn

Turns his face from me, then my temples burn,

And, sick with disenchantment and despair,

I hate the very raiment that I wear.

And when I sail upon a tranquil sea,

Praying for wind to waft me speedily,

Should a head wind, a baffling wind, arise,

I view the pilot with unfriendly eyes.

But in my heart is no such thing as hate;

Who hates me he must be a reprobate.

THE bulbuls are wailing and crying

In every thicket to-night,

And my heart in its anguish is sighing

For daybreak and light.

Fate, full of inveterate malice,

As day follows day, takes care

To mix for my drinking the chalice

Of pain and despair.

The moth in the flame is dying,

The candle wastes to the core,

The world is replete with sighing

And hearts that are sore.

Like Jacob, I sorrow. No token

Of Joseph comes from the wild;

The heart of the parent is broken,

And careless the child.

The powers that are leagued to undo me

Are subtle and myriad-eyed;

Wherever I turn they pursue me;

Nowhere can I hide.

The oppressor’s hand on my shoulder

Is heavy; my strength is spent.

How long shall I languish and moulder

In prison-house pent?

Oh tyrant-horde! It is written,

“Beware of the down-trodden’s wail!”

The shaft of the cry of the smitten

Shall pierce through your mail.

In this world it is not to merit

Or virtue that honours are doled;

The wealthy distinction inherit,

And honours are sold.

THE REVELATION OF LOVE.

DAINTILY lifting His head in the world as a rose in the garden,

Love in His splendour arose for man to desire and adore.

Erst from the depths of space the murmur of heralding music

Rolled, and over the earth echoed a tumult of song.

Far fell the rays of His beauty, suffusing the skirts of the mountains,

Touching the rills till they leapt like flashes of light from the cliffs,

When those wine-red lips, like a rosebud, blossomed in laughter,

Rubies responsive appeared cascading from mountain and cave.

Whilst thou intonest this lay in the garden, around thee, O Makhfi,

Jacinth and jonquil start from the heart of the earth at thy feet.

LOVE’S SECRET.

OF Love that melts and Love that burns,

Wouldst thou the secret fountain know?

Ask of the bulbul where he learns

The notes that hot with passion glow;

Ask of the hymns that night and morn

Rise from the hermit’s lonely cell,

And ask of Ayaz’ tresses shorn

What they of Mahmud’s pain can tell.

Makhfi! wouldst thou discover where

Is hid the mystery of Love?

Go, listen to the voice of prayer

That bears it to the world above.

O COME, my Love, for I am worn and wasted,

I have no longer strength nor will to wait;

My heart bears countless wounds and I have tasted

The poisonous anguish of the shafts of fate.

Breeze of the dawn, come, see the wild confusion

The fell simoom has wrought in all my bowers;

Only my heart’s blood with a strange illusion

Colours the parterre erst so gay with flowers.

Just so Love’s flowers are blasted. Other traces

Are none but hearts wounded and bleeding sore.

All that is fair the surge of time effaces:

Khusrau is gone and Shirin is no more.

COME, my soul, arrange the banquet,

Set the candles on;

Drain a cup or two in memory

Of the dead and gone.

Prize the passing hour and ransack

All the wealth of life;

Watch and, while the bulbuls slumber,

Pluck the roses rife.

Peck not humbly like a captive

At thy dole of grain;

Boldly snatch the choicest morsels

From the fire of pain.

Let no phantom dread appal thee—

’Tis a passing gleam:

Life’s severest trials are but

Ripples on a stream.

Point not thou disdainful fingers

At the poor and low;

Rather take for shining planets

Sparks that flash and go.

Fortune ever changes. Dread not

Fortune’s ban and bane;

All the thorny growth of trouble

Is a mirage vain.

With a daring brow encounter

Every ill you meet;

Grapple boldly with each sorrow,

Dream not of defeat.

MANIAC of love, go, journey night and morn

Outside the sphere where sense and reason reign.

Rough are love’s ways and thorny; wouldst thou gain

The goal, tread warily. Footsore and worn

Rejoice. Delight in sorrow’s pangs is born

And love’s sweet guerdon on a bed of pain.

Fill thou thy bowl with tears, ere yet again

Thy turn comes round to drain the brimming horn.

To catch the skirts of purpose thou must bid

Farewell to life like Majnūn, lose thyself,

And rend the ties of sentiment and rid

Thy mind of thoughts of friends and place and pelf.

Not in thy hands but in thy heart is hid

Thy fortune. Lay thy weapons on the shelf.

O MOON of Love, Whose radiant face

Illumes a might we know not here,

Whose wine’s distilled in sigh and tear,

Whose cups are souls, whose flagon’s grace.

For Thee the world directs its gaze

Upon the firmament on high,

The while another subtler sky

Is filled and gladdened with Thy rays.

The arches where the enlightened kneel

Are Thy twin brows. Thou art the priest

Of temple as of mosque. The least

And greatest seek from Thee their weal.

Of self unheeding, out of range

Of other minds the lover’s heart

Lives from the circling world apart;

His words are wild, his gestures strange.

Earnest in search, the goal in sight,

Unflagging, spurred by new desire,

Forward he presses ever higher;

His eyes are filled with hopeful light.

His path towards the unknown land

He holds, and only craves of Thee

To lean in time of agony

A step or two upon Thy hand.

If Thou and he be twain, the soul

That loves must natheless onward fare

Through bane and bliss from stair to stair

Until it reach in Thee its goal.

METRE RAMAL MAQSŪR MODIFIED.

LO! the time of spring is over; from his haunts the bulbul flees;

None the less the rosebush stretches longing hands to catch the breeze.

Breeze of morning, that in olden times from far Egyptian skies

Brought the scent of Joseph’s raiment, brought the light to Jacob’s eyes.

Here no Jacob waits thy healing advent, but the rose forlorn

Mourns the absence of the bulbul, mourns her petals soiled and torn.

Loud resound the songs of wassail and the mourner’s dirge is still;

I alone of all the band remain to wail and weep my fill.

All my treasures have been rifled, all by robbers borne away,

Yet, my eye upon the lattice, still within the house I stay.

All alone I sit and all in darkness in the lonesome night,

Though the flambeaux of my songs have filled the universe with light.

THOUGH admission be denied thee

Still keep knocking at the door;

If the Friend be cold and chide thee

Warm thy heart to Him the more.

Wilt thou ever be a stranger

To this Dear One? In thy breast,

In thine inner heart behold Him,

All His secrets manifest.

Rough the road, the goal is distant,

Robbers posted on their beat

Watch to steal thy faith’s dear treasure,

I have warned thee. Be discreet.

If the changeful wheel of fortune

Roll unkindly—let it roll.

These few days of life—what matter,

Be they passed in mirth or dole?

Makhfi, if the master-gardener

At the gate say, “Get thee hence,”

Wait without, and drink the perfume

Drifting to thee o’er the fence.

THE WATER OF LIFE.

O THOU who hast seized in Thy curls, as in chains, the heart of the lover,

Whose marvellous beauty ensnares and bewilders the brain,

In the pit of Thy dimpled chin shall the loyal discover

The fountain that Khizra searched for for ages in vain.

WITHIN my breast an endless smart,

And on my heart a load of pain,

And in mine eyes the crimson rain

Of tears upwelling from the heart.

My every limb from head to sole

Aches with the wounds that grief has wrought;

No skill of leech availeth aught

To stitch such wounds and make them whole.

I fell into love’s snare, and yet

Am free, one of the dervish band,

And though my back be bent, I stand

All in the cypress shadow straight.

If Thou wert wroth with me to-day

The transient pain is overpast;

To-morrow love shall bind us fast,

And I will soothe Thee as I may.

My life is Thine, and my heart’s dove

I slay to make Thee dainty fare,

And all I have I will prepare

And set upon the board of Love.

From morn till eve my burning soul

Shall shoot its flame into the sky,

And like a fiery banner high

Wave o’er the world its mystic scroll.

BEREFT of Thee my wildered sense

Went wailing on from eve to morn,

And in my loneliness forlorn

I called on Death to take me hence.

I called on Death, but called in vain;

Only thine image, limned by thought

In my heart’s inner chamber, brought

A little solace to my pain.

Kneeling before my lamp to-night,

And musing on Thy lustrous form,

I loosed my prayers, as birds, to swarm

Towards Thee in their homing flight.

And I, a bird, imprisoned long

And banished from Thy pleasure-grounds,

In vain regret that knows no bounds

Murmur to Thee my plaintive song.

THE beauty of the Friend it was that taught me

The ways of love, the paths of grief and care,

And I am dazed and giddy since he caught me

In the bright eddies of His whirling hair.

My tears break forth, my will is overridden,

Reason retreats and resolutions wane;

The stormy bursts of weeping come unbidden,

Wayward and fitful as the April rain.

Yet I stand firm, with all around me reeling;

The waves of trouble, breaking round my head,

Move me—no more than storms and thunder pealing

Disturb the still memorials of the dead.

Not like a falcon do I spread my pinions,

Mounting to tumble downwards on my prey;

Upwards and onwards through the sun’s dominions

I soar, a Humā, to the source of day.

THAT I may see Thy face I am resigned

To bear awhile the weary load of life,

Which I would fain fling off; so hard I find

The shame, the grief, the strife.

I am so cold, so cold; this feeble frame

Is so benumbed with the chill winds of chance,

That, were the world on fire, the encircling flame

Would scarcely break the trance.

I am so bound in trammels of despair,

I think, “Can freedom ever come to me?”

I seem a collar round my neck to wear,

A badge of slavery.

I am so foul, so soiled with frequent vice,

My garments so besmirched with spot and stain,

Not all the waves of Kausar would suffice

To wash me clean again.

LOVE’S thralls are we, and hence abide

Regardless of the world we’ve left,

Absorbed in our distress, bereft

Of consciousness of all beside.

Our banquet-hall’s a house of woe,

We drain the heart’s red blood for wine,

And, drunk therewith, we cease to pine

For aught that fortune can bestow.

If in our outward mien we seem

Anywise troubled or distrest,

’Tis but a semblance. In our breast

Hidden there reigns a calm supreme.

Here is no sound to vex our mood

Except the clanking of our chain.

No friends, thank God, with counsels vain

Break in upon our solitude.

WHERE is the kindred soul that will join me in singing, like David,

Psalms to be borne by the wind up to the threshold of heaven?

All too cold are our sighs; they flutter helplessly earthward

When they should rise like fire, like flame that ascends to the sky.

Day after day goes down into night, and the vision of union

Comes like a dream in the night, doomed to be broken by dawn.

Oh to be free from the weeks and days and their weary succession,

Free as the wind to pass into the courts of the Friend.

I WAITED at the gate of hope

And found no respite for my pain,

And, Majnūn-like, I turned again

Through the dark wilderness to grope.

With tearless eyes and bursting heart

I dragged my weary feet to where

Jaihun deploys his waters fair,

Only with thirst unslaked to part.

Erewhile I sought with painful art

To unravel life’s entangled skein,

But all my labour was in vain,

For, lo, the knots were in my heart.

Like Farhad, when my cries of woe

Fell without response, I was fain

To gather up my load of pain

And forth with broken heart to go.

Humayun-like I left my state,

Dogged ever by relentless foes,

And never a happy omen rose

Over the cloud-rack of my fate.

So that I wonder with what aim

The powers that govern death and birth

Sent me to tread this weary earth

Just to return from whence I came.

Yet, Makhfi, in this hall to-night

Stay, where thy lamp with others burns,

Till all the lamps, when day returns,

Fade in the overflow of light.

DULY in season comes the spring,

Where is the soul-awaking wine?

Roses around their perfumes fling,

Where is the bulbul’s song divine?

Roses bestrew the plain, and blue

Heaven outspreads its canopy;

The flowers have filled their cups with dew,

Where is the wine-cup filled for me?

Dewy and fresh the ambient air

Summons us out from cell and shrine;

Where is the bulbul’s song? and where

Loiters the hand that pours the wine?

Laughing the rose her charms displays,

Luring the bird to come and woo.

Oh, with what joy I’d stand and gaze

Were but my sovereign Rose in view.

METRE RAMAL MASHKUL MODIFIED.

WHEN the garden’s sweet with rose-bloom,

Sweet with song of the nightingale,

After night-fall let the riot

Of feast and wassail and wine prevail.

Through the day the wine is idle,

The taverns slumber; when night descends

Mirth instals the reign of pleasure,

The sadness of day with the daylight ends.

Laughter sways the crowd of revellers,

Floods of merriment rise and fall,

Theirs the wine and theirs be the roses,

Mine the thorns and the draught of gall.

THINE to stroll in park and garden,

Mine to roam the streets forlorn;

Thine the feast, the sport, the laughter,

Mine in solitude to mourn.

Thine the rule and Thine the lordship,

Mine to toil in serfdom sore;

Thine the pomp of rich apparel,

Mine to beg from door to door.

Thine the sword that slays and spares not,

Mine the smarting of despair;

Mine the brand of idol-worship,

Thine the dogma and the prayer.

As Thou wilt, so deal Thou with me;

All in silence I will bear.

Well I know that Beauty’s captive

Must eternal fetters wear.

QUATRAINS.

WEARY am I of life and life of me;

Like glass and stone are we in company.

How shall I come to the beloved’s tent?

Dark is the road, my palfrey’s strength is spent.

ON THE NOM DE PLUME MAKHFI, MEANING HIDDEN.

COULD he see me the bulbul would turn from his roses,

The Brahman his idol would cease to adore.

Like perfume in roses I lurk in my posies,

And he who would know me must list to my lore.

I PRIZE not beauty sleek,

The inward truth I seek;

Love’s slave, all faiths and mysteries I share.

Preacher, you need not tell

Me of the pains of Hell,

For Hell’s worst pains within my heart I bear.

NO moth am I that in impetuous fashion

Fly to the flame and perish. Rather say

I am a candle that with inward passion

Slowly and silently consume away.

SONG is a pearl, a something shed

Out of the clouds of grace divine,

Whose lustre from within is fed,

Whose inner virtue makes it shine.

Song is a pearl. With patient toil

The singer plunges deep to find

The treasure of his lucent spoil

In the abysses of the mind.

And so for many a year I wrought,

With ache and effort, ere the time

When, slowly tamed, exuberant thought

Harnessed itself to measured rhyme.

NOAH, chosen of Allah, afloat on the wildering ocean,

How wilt thou pilot thy barque where never a landmark appears?

Precious the freight that thou bearest, more precious is life than thou knowest,

Knowing not, heedfully steer. See that thou risk not thy charge.

Over this measureless ocean he watches; and, lo! in the distance

Out of the sea, like a foam-fleck, rises the sign of His hand.

Thou too, Ahmad, apostle, and Lord of the realm of existence,

Thou whose command prevails in the world and all things therein,

King of the style and the tablet, to whose all-gathering vision

The world grows small in the vast prospects of aeons to be;

Monarch of all, on the floor of whose palace-portals the angels

Deem it a favour to sit humbly attending thy hest;

Thou whose unbounded grace accords an unlimited pardon

Now to the felon and rebel, now to the slaves of thy house;

Thou on the chart of whose foresight, portraying futurity’s secrets,

Destiny, dumbly concurrent, set her immutable seal,

Who shall approach or attend thee, whose flight on the day of ascension

Measured the heavens, while Gabriel laboured to follow in vain?

Fed by the wealth of thy mercy the earth pours forth her abundance,

Fruitful her plains, and the odours of Paradise breathe in her bowers.

A SERENADE.

BY my darling’s poignant glances,

By her curling ringlet’s snare,

By the shafts her eyebrow lances,

By her witching eyes I swear

With her charms and spells she slays me,

Prostrate in the dust she lays me.

By the white rose that her face is,

By the black night of her hair,

By the shackles of her tresses,

By my heart-suspense I swear

Lowly in the dust I’m lying,

And my only cure is—dying.

By the darkling eye that hatches

Raid and rapine in its lair,

By her Hindu beauty-patches,

By her pouting lips I swear

Her fell cruelty consumes me,

To perpetual torture dooms me.

By her wit that gleams and flashes,

By the lustre of her pearls,

By the arrows of her lashes,

By the lassoes of her curls,

I’m her captive, captivated

By those lips with honey baited.

By thy cheeks of pale enamel,

By thy moon-like beauty pure,

By the souls that Love doth trammel,

By his slain I thee adjure

Come and fill my heart with gladness,

Rescue me from grief and madness.

By the spell of woven tresses,

By that Tartar musk of thine,

By the craft of thy caresses,

By thine eyebrows’ billowy line

Ever hoping, weeping, sighing,

Yearning for thy lips I’m dying.

By the loftiest heaven’s splendour,

By all heaven’s infinity,

By the Truth and Truth’s Defender,

By the lamp of prophecy

Abject at thy feet I’m kneeling,

One kind look is all my healing.

IS it not time from Thy long sleep to rise

And lift the veil that hides Thee from our eyes?

See how the world is wasted by decay,

And chase the noxious influence away.

Let loyalty once more in honour dwell,

Or from the code of life good faith expel.

The world is filled with men who fawn and feign,

Sweep out hypocrisy and end its reign.

From pole to pole injustice rules the roast,

Crush the oppressors and disperse their host.

Justice has coiffed me with a cowl of night,

Let mercy lift the cowl and give me sight.

Anoint mine eyes with grace and bid them gaze

Bold and undazzled on Thy glory’s blaze.

These eyes, like Jacob’s, on the road are bent;

Let the breeze touch them with its healing scent.

YES, I turned back. The way was hard to travel

Over the stormy sea and desolate land;

The sea was harbourless—ashore, my palfrey

Sank fetlock-deep into the yielding sand.

I asked for food in every mart I traversed;

Food was there none, but hunger and despair.

Long days I passed seeking the Living Water;

Khizra I found—the fountain was not there.

Ere this I sought the company of sages;

Not theirs the helpful voice that soothes and cheers.

Like Jacob I was lonely, robbed of Joseph,

Left to the barren solace of my tears.

Yet I live on, branded by Love and tortured,

Racked with a pain I can no more disguise;

My tears and wails betray me and my guarded

Secret is patent in my streaming eyes.

My birth-star doomed me to a life of trouble,

Else why should heaven pursue me with its curse?

God’s rain of mercy elsewhere sheds its blessing,

But I unworthy slide from worse to worse.

At last, worn out, weary beyond endurance,

I seek an anodyne to ease my pain.

World-guardian Thou, Ahmad Apostle, hear me;

Wide is the world, but wider is thy reign.

EPILOGUE.

TELL me who can what means this royal train,

Why round the rose the courtier tulips throng.

Pour out the wine: with doubts why vex the brain?

Most sweet in spring are revelry and song.

Where is the host? Why tarries he so long?

Good host! this life reflects the seasons’ flight,

Summer and winter, autumn and green spring;

In all four seasons wine is our delight.

All times are pleasant while we drink and sing;

No one can tell what end the years will bring.

What though we come from nought and end in nought?

The Providence that rules us is benign.

Let the red wine and royal bowl be brought,

The bowl of Jamshed wreathed with eglantine;

Sit here beside the stream and quaff the wine.

All is foredoomed. Why will ye travail yet?

Ascetic, say, what boot thee fast and prayer?

Springtime is come: why should we mope and fret?

Must we in springtime wine and love forbear?

Grant that we sin—there’s grace in heaven to spare.

This world of time is but a pageant, where

Some lead and others follow in the dance,

Where all is false, however seeming fair,

And where pale lovers, wandering as in trance,

Find but scant happiness, and that by chance.

Hush, ye to whom the wine of ecstasy

Is strange, and mystic chants are wearisome;

Hermit and dervish know no more than we;

They seek in vain the silent depths to plumb.

Sceptic! why rail because the heavens are dumb?

The lover hugs the fire within his breast;

The drunkard, drinking, ceases to repine;

Makhfi in lamentations finds a zest;

The monk craves water, Hafiz thirsts for wine;

But what Thou will’st, O God, who shall divine?

O THOU in whom subsists my life, my all,

From whose bright source I came,

To Thy bright goal my wandering steps recall,

Guiding them free from blame.

Whether before Thy holy shrine I bow,

Or track elsewhere Thy fame,

Where’er Thy presence lightens here below

I go, crying Thy name.

Wandering forlorn my heart exhales its sighs

Upon hope’s clouded glass,

Till through a rain of tears Thy lightning flies,

Bidding me see and pass.

LOVE, the marauder,

Rides through the champaign;

Bright is his panoply,

Bitter his dart.

Golden his helm, but of

Steel is his corselet;

Winsome his visage, but

Hard is his heart.

Baleful and beautiful,

Scattering his death-shafts,

Love, the destroyer,

Rides through the plain.

Splashed to the hocks with

Blood is his war-horse,

Strung to his housings are

Scalps of the slain.

Love, the Demoniac,

Sweeps through the universe,

Fell as the blast of the

Burning simoom,

Leaving a dolorous

Track in the wake of him,

Tears and confusion and

Madness and doom.

THE WANDERING DERVISH.

SHOW me Thy face and make the world grow slight

In my heart’s vision; let me deem it praise

If men deride and scorn me, so my ways

Win me approval from the saints whose sight

Is purged from Error. Following Thy light

Through the drear desert, where no soul may dwell,

My song precedes me as a camel’s bell,

And, all in patience as in armour dight,

I persevere upon my lonely way

Undaunted, till some day the angel’s song

From Thy high throne shall strike my ears, the lay

That greets the jubilant martyrs, and along

A rainbow arch white seraphs from above

Reach down to lift me to the world of love.

WATCH beside me while I’m sleeping,

Let my spirit feel Thy spell!

Flash upon me, ere I waken,

All the charms I love so well!

Let me see the lustrous tresses

Where my senses captive dwell;

Let me see my own heart quiver

In the chains it loves so well!

Bend on me those eyes revealing

Love more deep than lips can tell!

Fold my spirit in Thy Spirit

In the trance I love so well.

O LOVELINESS divine, that unespied

Didst wait discovery on Thy curtained throne,

As ruby in its rocky lair unknown,

Or pearl ensconced beneath the unconscious tide,

Or flowers that folded in the bud abide

Till comes the zephyr where they dream alone

Kissing them into blushing life—so, sown

Within man’s heart Thy seeds all mute reside.

O Love! these hidden seeds are germs of fire,

Which, when the revelation of Thy name

Passes upon them, quickening desire,

As zephyr on the roses, burst in flame

And, shooting upwards, to the skies aspire,

Seeking to reach the source from which they came.

METRE HAZAJ SALIM.

WITHOUT Thy face, my sweet rose-bloom,

I love not rose nor flower-strewn bed;

A straw-heap’s worth a rose-leaf couch,

If o’er it love his fragrance shed.

The splendid shams of earth-born wealth

May charm two days and charm no more,

And night-cups leave, when morn-tide comes,

The head all dull, the eyes all sore.

Then prize that tryst where friend meets friend,

For there thou’lt find the true-love bowers,

Where rose greets rose with heart-warm smile

And Spring spreads forth her loveliest flowers.

METRE RAMAL MAQSŪR.

IN the spring-time, like a rose, go, pitch thy tent where roses twine,

Take thy place where sit the fair ones, let thy cup brim high with wine.

On the wild winds fling thy thumb-worn tomes and, like barbarian, cast

Fire on stored-up hoards of wisdom, garnered relics of the past.

Makhfi, in sweet hours of spring-tide, though the gardener rate and scold,

Pluck from this parterre a rose-bud, set it in thy turban’s fold.

METRE RAMAL MASHKUL.

I OBSERVE my vigil night-long

In a night that knows no morrow,

And my sighs are cold and barren,

Unavailing is my sorrow.

From my eyes like crimson pearl-drops

Never-ceasing tears are flowing;

For my heart’s a crimson ocean

With its pearls like rubies glowing.

Thou art vain and proud and careless;

When the people lie a-bleeding

Under Thy relentless arrows,

Little reck’st Thou of their pleading

Go to, disappointed minstrel!

Let us cease complaints to utter

Which, unwinged with strong volition,

In a trice to earth must flutter.

METRE MUJTASS MAKHBUN MAQSŪR.

I CANNOT gaze on Thy beauty,

I cannot fathom Thy mind;

I cannot live with my rivals,

Nor flee and leave them behind.

I cannot trust in Thy promise,

Nor face unmoved Thy disdain;

I cannot smother my feelings;

I dare not tell of my pain.

My heart’s on fire with a passion

That tears avail not to cure;

My only medicine is patience,

My only choice to endure.

METRE MUZARI AKHRAB MAKFUF.

HOW long of wine and wine-cup

And wine-jar repeat the song?

How long renew the praises

Of drinkers and drink? How long?

Deep-drenched with wine and frenzied

The wild heart no reason hears,

O heart of mine! ’tis wiser

To fill full the bowl with tears.

Ah me! my robe is sullied;

No art can efface the stain.

What though my tears in rivers

Should lave it? ’Tis all in vain.

Come then, uncork the bottle

And fill full with wine the bowl,

Till dreams of blissful union

In rose-perfume bathe the soul.

Save by the wine that rouses

The heart can no fervour know.

Up! let us to the tavern,

And there let the vintage flow.

METRE RAJAZ MATVI MAKHBUN.

COME and caress these half-shut eyes

Dreaming of bliss, of love and Thee.

Shall not the slave that pours the wine

Taste of the draught of ecstasy?

Under Thy brows there lurks a fire

Mighty enough a world to slay;

O let its rays, disarmed of wrath,

Graciously gently on me play.

Braid not Thy hair; its cruel coils

Tighten around my soul anew;

Freely I yield my forfeit life,

Torture me not with rack and screw.

Thine am I, Thine in all my ways;

Whether I kneel in Mecca’s shrine

Or in a heathen temple bow,

Thine are my thoughts, my prayers are Thine.

METRE MUNSARAH MUSAMMAM MATVI,
SLIGHTLY MODIFIED.

SLACK is the flame of devotion

When the disciple is sad;

All overbold with emotion

Waxes the heart that is glad.

Thou who in prayerful submission

Kneel’st at the threshold Divine,

Reach forth thy hands and petition,

Ask and the boon shall be thine.

Thou who in folly complainest

Life slips so swiftly away,

Die to thy senses,—thou gainest

Life that is free from decay.

If thou wouldst taste of life’s fountain

Khizra shall second thy quest;

Follow o’er desert and mountain,

Ask for the cup of the blest.

Long hast thou roamed in the garden,

Footsore, astray in the night;

Turn to the Gardener for pardon,

Ask of Him leading and light.

Makhfi, the aims that you nourish

Fade in the noontide of sloth;

Drench them with tears and they flourish;

Thence cometh increase and growth.