GAZEL
Surge in waves my streaming tears, e’en like a rushing flood, once more,
From their smallest drop, the sources of a hundred Niles would pour.
Overwhelm the raging billows of my tears the heart’s frail bark,
Though the mem’ry of her cheek, like to the beacon, radiance throw.
What my pen writes down appeareth, in the eyes of brutish men,
Like the needle to the blinded, of discerning clear the foe.
One the beggar’s bowl would be with the tiara of the King,
Were it but reversed, for then like to the royal crown ’twould show.
Though it be coarse as a rush-mat, is that soul the seat of grace,
Which doth, like the wattle basket, freely bread to guests bestow,
“Yonder hair-waist I encircled,” did the braggart rival say;
But her waist exists not—hair-like slight his boasting’s truth doth show.
O thou vain one! see, what anguish to the head of Nimrod brought
Was by one gnat’s sting, which like to trunk of elephant did grow.
Sāmī, it is thy intention to compare to heaven’s bowers
These thy distichs eight, with shining flowers of rhetoric that glow.
Sāmī.