FRAGMENT
Come is the autumn of my life, alas, it thus should pass away!
I have not reached the dawn of joy, to sorrow’s night there is no day.
Time after time the image of her cheek falls on my tear-filled eye;
Ah! no pretension to esteem can shadows in the water lay!
Oh! whither will these winds of Fate impel the frail barque of the heart?
Nor bound nor shore confining girds Time’s dreary ocean of dismay!
Gazālī.
GAZEL
Dead am I of grief, my Moon no love who shows, ah! where art thou?
Reach the skies, the plaints and wails born of my woes, ah! where art thou?
Save within thy rosy bower rests not the nightingale, the heart;
Figure fair as waving cypress, face as rose, ah! where art thou?
Through thy lips the rose drops sugar at the feast of heart and soul;
Where, my Parrot whose sweet voice doth love disclose, ah! where art thou?
Though with longing dead were Ishāaq, live should he, did once she say:
“O my poor one, wildered, weary, torn by woes, ah! where art thou?”
ON THE PROPHET MUHAMMED
That thy form, O Beauty of his orchard who doth all pervade!
Is a cypress, wrought of light, that casteth on earth’s face no shade.
Though the gazers on the loveliness of Joseph cut their hands,
Cleft in twain the fair moon’s palm, when it thy day-bright face surveyed.
To the mart of the Hereafter, when a man hath passed, he gains
Through the money bright, thy love, which is of joy the stock-in-trade.
This, my hope, that yonder Cypress in the bowers of Paradise
Shelter Zātī, and all true believers, ’neath his blissful shade.
Zātī.