Songs of dead laughter, songs of love once hot,
Songs of a cup once flushed rose-red with wine,
Songs of a rose whose beauty is forgot,
A nightingale that piped hushed lays divine:
And still a graver music runs beneath
The tender love notes of those songs of thine,
Oh, Seeker of the keys of Life and Death!
While thou wert singing, the soft summer wind
That o’er Mosalla’s garden blew, the stream
Of Ruknabad flowing where roses twined,