While he was thus oppressed with many a woe,
Thus he addressed his chanson to the night:
“What means, O night, this dark and murkiness,
Which so torments with terror every soul?
Is it from absence from the loved one come,
That now the moon withholds her welcome beam?
Is all the radiance of the sunlight quenched?
And all the circling Pleiads put to flight?
Has my lament extinguished Saturn’s ray,
So that his rings no longer flash their beams?
Has Jupiter his happy seat forsaken
Because of the unhappiness of earth?
Is it that Mars has fallen by the sword,
That therefore all the heavens are clothed in black?
Why does the sun refuse to show his face?
Is he, the fount of light, to darkness turned?
Has Anahid, in hopeless apathy,
Flung to the ground her lute of poesy?
Is Mercury, heaven’s letter-writer, grown
Black as the ink that dries upon his pen?
Why does the world this face of darkness wear?
Is it that my lament has brought it gloom?
Why is it morning fails to show itself?
Surely my chanson has not held it back.
Why is the night so slow in its advance?
Is it that day brings absence from my love?
Surely the day of resurrection dawns,
When all the stars fall down upon the earth!
Who has thus closed the window of the moon?
And broken the golden lampstand of the sun?
Is it the operation of my sighs
That tinges all the earth with dismal hues?
And has the dart of light forsaken heaven?
And does the sky wear mourning for my woe?
The constellated eagle stops his flight.
Or has he flitted to the realms of gloom?
Has Vega fallen, with a broken heart,
Down from her pinnacle of happiness?”
When he had uttered loud this lone complaint,
He with his spirit thus soliloquized:
“Why is it that the ruler of the world
Has set me in this valley of distress?
For neither to my mother nor my sire
Have I been aught but minister of pain.
Oh, better were it I had ne’er been born,
And all my blood had flowed away like milk!
So that, before I closed my eyes in sleep,
Death’s sword had doomed me to forgetfulness.
Or while I yet in cradle bands reposed,
My life had early passed away from me.
Oh, that the mother’s milk that wet my lips
Had turned to poison in that very hour!
Oh, that an arrow swift had struck my heart,
And parted at a stroke the thread of life!
Oh, that some poison-fanged and treacherous snake
Had bitten me to death upon my bed!
Oh, that some vulture fierce had carried me
To its lone eyrie in the heights of Kaf!
And when the soft hand of a mother dear
Arrayed her infant in the richest robes,
Oh, that some sturdy robber of the road,
For love of all my gold and finery,
Had without pity drawn his rapier keen
And from my shoulders struck my head to earth!
Why does the world refrain from setting me,
As its great foe, ’mid perils and mishaps?
Why is it this calamity of woe
Has failed to cleave my bosom unawares?”
As thus he sang aloud his dolorous lay,
The moon came out upon the clearing sky,
And when he looked on heaven’s expanded field,
Thus he addressed the goddess of the night.
XXI
The Nightingale in His Amorous Pain Anxiously Addresses the Radiant Moon
He sang in agony, “O radiant moon,
That fillest all the welkin with thy light,
Dost thou in some bright sun thy mansion find,
Whence thou derivest thine enraptured beam?
And hast thou thence a borrowed splendor gained,
With which to fill the world thou gazest on?
The darkness that is dense and hideous
Turns at thy coming into splendor clear.
Leave me not comfortless this whole night long,
But guide me to my darling’s wakeful bower.
To me, a wanderer on the rough highway,
Be guide and leader on a path direct.
And, when thou movest in thine orbit blest,
Let thy light flow like some enchanting lay.
Thou art indeed the glowing sun of night,
Flinging o’er heaven the light flecks of thy face.
Oh, cast thy radiance on this friend of thine,
Who wanders with no sunshine in his life.
Be to the poor, who consolation need,
The balm for every wound ’neath which they faint.
One glance of thine has power to dissipate
The fevered pangs of sufferance in the poor.
Needy and friendless and of all forlorn,
Fit object he of thy consoling aid.
And since his sorrows are beyond compare,
And with no changing breath he bears thee love,
And since his love to thee is reckoned crime,
Do thou absolve him of his guiltiness.
For if thou turn thee from a beggar’s path,
Before the people thou shalt blush with shame.
When men rebuke him, and blot out his name,
Or make his name forgotten by his kind,
If thou at last become averse to him,
There is no hope of pity for his soul.”
While the poor lover thus his mourning made,
The welkin sparkled with the glance of day.
XXII
The Lovesick Nightingale Accosts the Risen Morning in a Clear and Fitting Manner
“O light of morn, that beautifies the world,
By force of truth and of sincerity,
Thy heart is lit by the pure light of truth,
And open to the world as day itself.
Let thy pure joy illuminate my heart,
Make thyself known to yonder moon of heaven;
’Tis she that sheds her rays upon this world,
When thou hast flashed thy beams upon her disk;
Oh, tear away this veil of gloom from me,
And call to me the mistress of my heart.
Say to her: ‘Sore is yonder poor man’s heart;
He journeys o’er the world with silent lips.
To this poor wanderer in the way of love
Must thou show pity and compassion due,
For want has torn the mantle from his back,
And love has laid him prostrate on the earth.
He sees before him nothing but the grave,
And never turns his glance aside from it.
Oh, do not tread the helpless in the dust,
Dam up the flood of wrath that threatens him!
When this poor man the needed morsel wants,
The beggar still can boast a wallet full.
He has nor wealth nor influence, my queen,
Yet lacks he not accomplishment, my queen;
And gold and silver failing, ’tis enough
To see thy tears and sympathetic glance.
Be gentle, then, to this accomplished man,
And give assistance to a bard inspired.
The prince who acts with kindness to the poor
Proves by his deeds his loving gentleness.’”
While in this wise the nightingale discoursed,
The sun stood beaming in the arch of heaven,
And as he marked it, from the moon he turned
And fixed his contemplation on the sun.
XXIII
The Desponding Nightingale Addresses the World-adorning Sun, While His Inmost Heart Glows With Ardent Desire
He said: “O lord of light in heaven above,
Thou art the lightener of the angel realm,
Thy lustre fills with radiance all the world,
And reaches to the garden of the Rose.
’Tis by thy diligence that all things are,
And are from elemental atoms formed.
Thou art the eye and lamp of all the world,
Light to men’s sight, and lustre to the stars.
Unless the moon derived her light from thee,
She were in darkness to the judgment day;
And but that thou dost gaze upon the morn,
The gloom of night would never leave the east.
Thou art indeed the morning gate of love,
Spreading thy light in footprints of the morn;
Oh, let my ardent passion shine on her,
And fall with suppliant words before her gate.
Go humbly to the place where she abides,
And fling thyself before her fairy feet.
Oh, speak to yonder moon about my love,
And say to her, Fair regent of the heavens,
For thy great beauty lies thy lover low,
And like a shadow trodden in the dust.
For him there is no daylight in the world,
So sorely absence keeps him prisoner.
The night of absence wounds him to the quick,
Oh, give him but a glimpse of thy fair face.
Oh, change the loneliness of one long night
For the delightsomeness of cheerful day.
Let him, who is with passion deep consumed,
Look with his longing eye upon his love.
This wretched one is prisoner of thine,
Have pity on the wandering devotee.
Suffering and despite is his only wealth,
And he is despicable all for thee.
He stands unnoticed in the world’s wide house,
Stretch out thy hand to welcome the despised;
The window-sill and threshold of thy house,
Shall then his Sacred Stone and Mecca be.
He watches through the night till morn arise,
And speaks aloud thy name in his distress.
Early and late he thinks alone of thee;
Early and late his heart is set on thee.
His prayers he utters in thine ear alone,
He turns to thee alone his anxious eye.
Thou art his creed, all others he forswears;
Thou art the sect and ritual that he loves.
The creed that he professes is thy love.
Offend not, then, the Mussulman’s belief.
Grant, queen, the prayer of thy fond devotee,
O Queen, propitious be to his desire.”
’Twas thus he spake aloud his inmost thought,
But vain was all his pleading and his pain.
And so he turned him from the sun and moon,
Like Abraham, and made appeal to God.
XXIV
The Nightingale, in His Distress, Turns From Sun and Moon and Addresses a Prayer to God
He turned to the Creator with his prayer
Of pain, to Wisdom and Omniscience,
And cried: “O God, who art the Lord of all,
Who easest sorrow, and who hearest prayer,
Thou knowest the hidden secrets of the world,
For thou art Ruler both of heaven and earth.
Thou knowest well the plight in which I lie;
And that my burden ever greater grows;
No human mind can tell what I have borne,
How I am bowed beneath a load of shame;
How I have been the slave of luckless woe,
And have succumbed to the sharp stroke of grief.
I burn in passion’s longing and distress,
But thy grace reigns in blest tranquillity;
I cannot ope my heart to anyone,
For utterance crushes me, and wearies me;
For I am friendless in a stranger’s house,
Hopeless in absence from my well-beloved.
Nothing is constant to me, saving grief
And obloquy. Was ever such a lot?
And no one sorrows over my distress,
My eye alone distils these pearly tears;
No friend is partner of my obloquy,
My gloom of sighs involves myself alone.
No one has sympathy with my dread lot,
Nor heeds the wounds upon my bleeding breast.
If I should die, there would no mourners be,
Excepting this impassioned heart of mine.
I tread the valley of astonishment,
O God, when shall I reach the house of joy?
Oh, by this heart, that runs to thee for help,
By the deep sighs that burn me as they rise,
By the loud beatings of my whispering heart,
By the belovèd Rose in which I trust,
By all the beauty of some distant scene,
By all the rapture of heroic love,
By the high honor of my well-beloved,
By the lorn lot of him who loveth her,
By the black weeds that my devotion speak,
And by the tears that fill my eyes like blood,
By the misfortune and the wrath I feel,
By him who separates me from my love,
Yea, by the honeyed sweetness of her lips,
And by my own sincerity of soul,
By the unhappiness of him who loves,
And by his unstained rectitude of heart,
By that which to the lover causes woe,
And by the night-long pain in which he pines,
By all the light that glorifies the moon,
By all the radiance of this world of ours,
By daylight and the pomp of noonday suns,
By the thick darkness of the midnight hour,
By earth below, and by the heavens above,
And by the hustling crowd on judgment day,
By Adam’s early days of innocence,
By him who is the lord of purity,
By Seth, by Noah, and by Abraham,
By Gabriel, who brought the message down,
By Moses, who as prince and preacher spoke,
By Jesus and the light that Mary shed,
By all the love that great Mahomet won,
By his forbearance and his majesty,
By his young people and his dwelling-place,
By his great might that nothing could subdue:
By the prevailing virtue of God’s name
And by his nature’s unity divine,
Consume me not with separation’s flame,
Give me enjoyment’s happiness supreme;
Oh, softly warm her frozen heart for me,
And soften it with gentlest influence;
Pour out thy balm of pity in her heart,
That so my pain at last may be allayed.”