GAZEL
Through thine absence, smiling Rosebud, forth my soul doth go, alas!
Earth is flooded by the tears down from my eyes that flow, alas!
Should’st thou ask about my days, without thee they’re black as thy hair;
’Midst of darkness, O my Stream of Life, I’m lying low, alas!
With the stones of slander stone me all the cruel rival throng;
O my Liege, my Queen, ’tis time now mercy thou should’st show, alas!
When I die through longing for thee, and thou passest o’er my breast,
From my dust thou’lt hear full many bitter sighs of woe, alas!
In his loved one’s cause will Lutfī surely die the martyr’s death;
Let her brigand eyes from mulct for blood of mine free go, alas!
GAZEL
If ’tis state thou seekest like the world-adorning sun’s array,
Lowly e’en as water rub thy face in earth’s dust every day.
Fair to see, but short enduring is this picture bright, the world;
’Tis a proverb: Fleeting like the realm of dreams is earth’s display.
Through the needle of its eyelash never hath the heart’s thread past;
Like unto the Lord Messiah bide I half-road on the way.
Athlete of the Universe through self-reliance grows the Heart,
With the ball, the Sphere—Time, Fortune—like an apple doth it play.
Mukhlisī, thy frame was formed from but one drop, yet, wonder great!
When thou verses sing’st, thy spirit like the ocean swells, they say.
Mukhlisī.
GAZEL
One with Realms Eternal this my soul to make; what wouldest say?
All Creation’s empire’s fancies to forsake; what wouldest say?
Wearing to a hair my frame with bitter sighs and moans, in love,
Nestling in the Fair One’s tresses, rest to take; what wouldest say?
Yonder gold-faced birds within the quicksilver-resplendent deep:
Launching forth the hawk, my striving, these to take; what wouldest say?
Yonder Nine Smaragdine Bowls of Heaven to quaff at one deep draught,
Yet from all ebriety’s fumes free to break; what wouldest say?
To an autumn leaf the Sphere hath turned Khiyālī’s countenance;
To the Spring of Beauty, that a gift to make; what wouldest say?