Then forward to the blue of hills.
Out from the shattered barquenteen
The black frieze-coated sailors bore
Their dying despot to the shore
And wove a crazy palanquin.
They found a valley where the rain
Had worn the fern-wood to a paste
And tiny streams came down in haste
To eastward of the mountain chain.
And here was handiwork of Cretes,
And olives grew beside a stone,
And one slim phallos stood alone
Blasphemed at by the paroquets.
Hard by a wall of basalt bars
The night came like a settling bird,
And here he wept and slept and stirred
Faintly beneath the turning stars.
Then like a splash of saffron whey
That spills from out a bogwood bowl
Oozed from the mountain clefts the whole
Rich and reluctant light of day.
And when he neither moved nor spoke
And did not heed the morning call,
They laid him underneath the wall
And wrapped him in a purple cloak.
From the Modern Persian.
Lily of Streams lay by my side last night
And to my prayers gave answers of delight;
Day came before our fairy-tale was finished,
Because the tale was long, not short the night.
From the Persian of Abu-Said (978-1062).
Roses are a wandering scent from heaven.
Rose-seller, why do you sell your roses?
For silver? But with the silver from your roses
What can you buy so precious as your roses?
From the Persian of Abu-Yshac (middle of the tenth century).
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).
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 and wine and a girl like one of the angels
(If they exist),
And find a clear stream singing near its birth and a bed of moss
(If moss exists),
For loving and singing to the dancers and drinking and forgetting hell
(If hell exists),
Because this is a pastime better than paradise
(If paradise exists).
From the Persian of Omar Khayyam (eleventh century).
I made search for you all my life, and when I found you
There came a trouble on me,
So that it seemed my blood escaped
And my life ran back from me
And my heart slipped into you.
It seems, also, that you are the moon
And that I am at the top of a tree.
If I had wings I would spread them as far as you,
Dear bud, that will not open
Though the kisses of the holy bird knock at your petal door.
Song of Siam.
Kill me if you will not love me.
Here are flints;
Ram down the heavy bullet, little leopard,
On the black powder.
Only you must not shoot me through the head,
Nor touch my heart;
Because my head is full of the ways of you
And my heart is dead.
Song of Syria.
Young man,
If you try to eat honey
On the blade of a knife,
You will cut yourself.
If you try to taste honey
On the kiss of a woman,
Taste with the lips only,
If not, young man,
You will bite your own heart.
Song of the Tatars.
The Khan.
The son of the Khan.
The love of the son of the Khan.
The veil of the love of the son of the Khan.
The clear breeze that lifted the veil of the love of the son of
the Khan.
The buds of fire that scented the clear breeze that lifted the
veil of the love of the son of the Khan.
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.
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.
Your face upon a drop of purple wine
Shows like my soul poised on a bead of blood.
From the Turkic of Hussein Baikrani.
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.
Your lips,
I see great bloody roses
Cut in white dead breasts.
Your bed,
For I see wrestling bodies
Under the evening star.
From the Turkic.
Not a stone from my black sling
Ever misses anything,
But the arrows of your eye
Surer shoot and faster fly.
Not one creature that I hit
Lingers on to know of it,
But the game that falls to love
Lives and lingers long enough.
From the Turkic.
My dreams are bubbles of cool light,
Sunbeams mingled in the light green
Waters of your bath.
Through fretted spaces in the olive wood
My love adventures with the white sun.
I dive into the ice-coloured shadows
Where the water is like light blue flowers
Dancing on mirrors of silver.
The sun rolls under the waters of your bath
Like the body of a strong swimmer.
And now you cool your feet,
Which have the look of apple flowers,
Under the water on the oval marble
Coloured like yellow roses.
Your scarlet nipples
Waver under the green kisses of the water,
Flowers drowned in a mountain stream.
From the Modern Turkish.
Lions tremble at my claws;
And I at a gazelle with eyes.
From the Turkish of Sultan Selim I.
Before you love,
Learn to run through snow
Leaving no footprint.
From the Turkish.
Here are the doleful rains,
And one would say the sky is weeping
The death of the tolerable weather.
Tedium cloaks the wit like a veil of clouds
And we sit down indoors.
Now is the time for poetry coloured with summer.
Let it fall on the white paper
As ripe flowers fall from a perfect tree.
I will dip down my lips into my cup
Each time I wet my brush.
And keep my thoughts from wandering as smoke wanders,
For time escapes away from you and me
Quicker than birds.
From the Chinese of Tu Fu (712-770).
THE GARDEN OF BRIGHT WATERS
I am hoping that some readers will look on this collection primarily as a book of poems. The finding and selection of material and the shaping of the verses is my principal part in it. Most of the songs have been written from, or by comparing, the literal translations of French and Italian scholars, checked wherever possible by my own knowledge. When my first and very great debt to these has been stated, there remains my debt to the late John Duncan, to Mr. J. Wing, and to a friend, a distinguished writer both in Persian and Turkish, who wishes to remain unnamed. The kindness of these writers lies in trusting their work to my translation and helping me in that task. My book also owes much to suggestions prompted by the wide learning of Mr. L. Cranmer-Byng. My final debt is to him and to another generous critic. I have arranged my poems in the alphabetical order of their countries, and added short notes wherever I considered them necessary, at the instance of some kindly reviewers of an earlier book, which was not so arranged and provided.
AFGHANISTAN
SIKANDER, Alexander the Great.
SHALIBAGH, the notable garden of Shalimar in Lahore, planted by Shah Jahan in 1637.
ABDEL QADIR GILANI, Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, founder of the Qadirite order of the Dervishes, twelfth century.
ANNAM
K'IEN NIÜ and CHIK NÜ: the legend of these two stars comes from China and is told in Japan. Readers are referred to that section of Mr. L. Cranmer-Byng'sA Lute of Jadewhich deals delightfully with Po-Chü-i; and to Lafcadio Hearn'sRomance of the Milky Way.
ARABIC
ANTAR, the hero Antar Ebn Cheddad Ebn Amr Corad, who lived in the late sixth and early seventh centuries, owes his European reputation toSiret Antar, the Adventures of Antar, or more exactly the Conduct of Antar, written by Abul-Moyyed "El Antari" in the twelfth century. 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; and he was condemned to death for spying through keyholes on his master. But after he had proved an alibi, he also was rewarded.
"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. Within a year or two he was an established member of a small tribe of nomadic Arabs, and eventually he became in speech and appearance one of them, living their lazy, pastoral life and travelling up and down with them the whole line of the southwest coast of the Persian Gulf. Before his death, which occurred last year, at the age of forty-two or forty-three, he had become acquainted with the whole of habitable Arabia.
"Let Mr. Mathers take up the story as he told it to me: 'He married an Arab, and all his forty-odd poems are addressed to her. I saw only a snapshot of her, which showed her to be beautiful. In her he certainly found healing for the wound his abnormally fiery and sensitive nature had taken from the first woman. She pulled together an intellect rather easily subdued. I only knew him after her death (his reason for travelling to this country), and a dazed, utterly unpractical and uninterested habit of mind, which alternated with his brilliance of speech and to a less degree of thought, was probably a reversion to the psychic state which his marriage had cured.
" 'Like so many to whom life has at one time given a paralysing shock, Duncan was extremely reticent, save when he could lead the conversation, and be confidential at points of his own choosing; and he was not an easy man to question. The disappointment which had driven him from his country certainly made him more bitter against the British than any other man I have listened to. All his considerable wit and the natural acid of his thought were directed against our ideas, institutions, and beliefs.
" 'His one sane enthusiasm, English lyric verse, of whose depths, main-stream, and back-waters his knowledge was profound, formed one-half of his conversation.
" 'His English in talking was rich and varied, and it was an ironic caprice which made him refuse to write in that language. I doubt, though, whether he would have composed with ease in any tongue, for he found it hard to concentrate, and his small stock of verse was the outcome of ten years of unoccupied life. He approved, rather mockingly, my promise to try to find an English equivalent for some of them; and I think I have copies of all he wrote.
" 'One not acquainted with the man might find them rather hard to render, as, had he been an Arab actually, still he would have been the most unconventional of poets, neglecting form and the literary language.'"
My most cordial thanks are due to The Bookworm, of theWeekly Dispatch, for permission to make this long quotation from an article headed, "The Strange Story of John Duncan, the Arab-Scot," which appeared over hisnom de plumein the issue of that newspaper for March 30, 1919.
CHINA
J. WING: I have already translated three of this writer's poems: "English Girl," "Climbing after Nectarines," and "Being together at Night." These may be found inColoured Stars. Mr. Wing is an American-born Chinese and practises the profession of a valet.
JAPAN
THE CLOCKS OF DEATH: this poem is azi-sei, or lyric made at the point of death. Naga-Haru committed suicide after an unsuccessful defence of the strong castle Mi-Ki against Hashiba Hideyoshi in 1580. His wife followed his example, composing this poem as she died.
WAKANA, the turnip cabbage, whose leaves are eaten in early spring. The Mikado is lamenting a sudden realisation that he is too old for his love.
THE CUSHION: the poetess, daughter of Tsu-gu-naka, lord of Su-Wo, while at a party, asked for a cushion. A certain Iye-tada offered his arm for her to lean her head against, and she answered with these lines.
STREET SONGS: the three poems which I have so called are written in everyday colloquial Japanese. The words of the old language, which are the ornament of literary verse, are almost entirely excluded from these songs. In them one finds a superabundance of auxiliaries, and the presence of these marks a clear line between the literary and the folk-idiom.
KAZACKS
TAMOUR-LENG, Tamerlane. The facts of "You Do Not Want Me" are historical; but it should be added that Gahuan-Beyg succeeded in overcoming Zohrah's indifference, and that a few months after their marriage he beheaded her with his own hand for speaking to another man.
LAOS
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. He died at least twenty years before the birth of Omar Khayyam. Readers will have been struck by the similarity of idea in "The Roses" and in two lines in Fitzgerald's Rubaiyat:
I often wonder what the vintners buyOne-half so precious as the goods they sell.
THIBET
THE LOVE OF THE ARCHER PRINCE: this form of poem, with one rhyme and repetitive and increasing lines, is a familiar one in Thibet; and thence it has entered Kafiristan and become a popular manner of composition Archipelago. English readers will remember an analogous poem, "The House that Jack built."