The Nightingale was gladdened by these words
And joy that moment lighted up his mind,
“O sir,” he said, “is this but sleep and dream?
The fragrance of fruition hits my sense.
Thou who has given me bliss, be happy thou,
And fortunate in either universe.
Thou who dost help me to my dearest wish,
May all thy purpose lead to happiness.
The best loved news dost thou convey to me;
For guerdon, thou may’st take my very soul.
I give to thee my soul, I give my life,
O bring me to the jewel of my love.”
He answered: “Patience and not haste be ours;
And often in delay is safety found.
Thou, dervish, must restrain thyself a while,
For overhaste is slower in despatch.
I bring thee to the bower of loveliness,
To Cypress, who is porter of the gate.
I hope by such expedient that the Rose
May entertain thee as a man of truth.”
So spoke to him the friend of purity
And showed him where the Rose’s meadow lay;
The Nightingale his footsteps followed fast
Until they reached the garden of the Rose.
XVIII
How the Nightingale Entered the Rose Garden Through the Kindly Offices of the Cypress
He saw a lofty building fair bedight
Like the green castle of the firmament,
A castle emerald-bright in radiance.
It twinkled like a marshalled host in arms;
Pure was the water, earth was sweet as musk.
An air of sanctity and plenty reigned.
Whoever came to this from Edentown
Might think his resting-place was paradise.
How could it fail to be a paradise
For him who hoped to find his love therein?
When the sad Nightingale beheld the place
Breathless and lost in wonder did he stand.
Above him was the arch of azure sky,
And at his feet the lovely river ran.
Then said the river: “Take good heed, and see
Thou give some respite to thy burning heart;
Meanwhile I stand me here, and as a man
I introduce thee to the portal’s guard.”
This said, he greeting to the Cypress sent.
Right quick the Cypress was his word to heed.
Low in the dust his countenance he laid
And with his tears bedewed the thirsty ground.
He said: “O Cypress, loftiest of mien,
Thou sittest at the footstool of the great,
I have a courteous word to speak to thee.
Open thy lips to me, I beg of thee;
For if thou lend me for a while thine ear,
I know my prayer at once will be fulfilled.
Here with a stranger destitute I come,
To show how the road lay to this place.
He is a man both kind and dutiful,
Of purest disposition and intent;
A dervish, and a man of loving heart.
But he is lorn and sick from pangs of love,
In outward guise he seems like a fakir,
But in the realm of science he is prince.
A genial friend, a comrade tender-hearted,
Of blameless mind and sympathetic soul,
A poet full of spiritual light
Is he, and in imagination young.”
XIX
How the Wandering Nightingale Alone in the Night Abides With His Sighs and Weeping Till Morning
’Twas night, when in the azure sky above
The stars as sleeping closed their sparkling eyes,
When friends and foes alike in slumber lay,
Yet, at the music of the Nightingale,
Awoke, for Bulbul then all sleepless sate
And uttered to the world his dolorous chant,
While thinking on the beauty of the Rose.
For vivid passion wakened in his heart,
And with his sad and melancholy voice
He ’gan to mourn above his well-beloved.
And thinking on his melancholy plight,
And on his desolation all forlorn,
He thus began his sad and mournful lay:
“O queen who dwellest in a careless realm,
O thou who art the moon of beauty’s heaven,
Half of all beauty’s bloom belongs to thee;
Thou the Rose-bloom of beauty’s paradise,
Oh, listen to the message that I bring,
As I begin to utter my lament.
For love of thee I sicken to my death;
And all my understanding fails in me;
Some secret pang my patience has destroyed,
I am distraught in this fair world of thine,
My fettered heart is struggling in a snare,
And all my soul is manacled in woe.
And through the dolor of my dazzled sight,
I am as faint as is the new-born moon.
Some power, as in the chase, my spirit hunts;
E’en now the gleaming knife is at my heart.
For, oh! the beauty of thy cheek has cast
Fire in the dreary dwelling of my mind;
And all the perilous lustre of thine eye,
Like a sharp sword, is levelled against me.
My suffering has cleft my heart in twain,
And in dire desolation ruined me.
I melt to nothing in the grief of love,
And plunge deep buried in a flood of woe;
For I am overcome with passion’s wound,
My inmost being heaves in pain and blood;
I am consumed, and absence tortures me.
And like a mote I hover in desire.
My love pain burns me like a heated iron,
My eye is like a beaker filled with wine;
Oh, help me, for endurance can no more;
Oh, spare me further buffets of disdain.
My strength is all unequal to this load,
And all my feebleness is free from guilt.
O slender Rose, and wilt thou that thy bird
Should still descant of absence and neglect
With thorn-pierced bosom ever hid from thee?
Now beauty in the lightest slumber lies,
And deeper sorrow checks my prayers to thee.
O Rose, beware thou of the gale of sighs,
For, like the morning wind, it mars the Rose.
On this distracted heart some pity take,
Be merciful and heal me of my pain.”
So sang the silver-throated nightingale,
So sang he, with his soul aflame in love.
But there was naught that noted or allayed
His pain, and tears were still his sole relief.
No one gave heed to his sad cantilene,
And no one knew the meaning of his woe.
To him the world in utter darkness lay,
He was encompassed by a trackless maze,
On one side were the shadows of the night,
And on the other was the force of fate.
The world in dreariness and sorrow lay,
The very stars were dimmed in slumber deep,
And darkness would not yield before the light,
And not a sign of morn was on the hills.
And long and lonesome were those darkling hours
Of agony, while refuge there was none.