His grief and mourning Zeyd renewèd alway,
From bitter wailing ceased he not, he wept aye.
That faithful, loving, ever-constant friend dear,
One night, when was the rise of the True Dawn near,
Feeling that in his wasted frame no strength stayed,
Had gone, and down upon that grave himself laid.
There, in his sleep, he saw a wondrous fair sight,
A lovely garden, and two beauties, moon-bright;
Through transport rapturous, their cheeks with light glow;
Far distant now, all fear of anguish, pain, woe;
With happiness and ecstasy and joy blest,
From rivals’ persecutions these have found rest;
A thousand angel-forms to each fair beauty,
With single heart, perform the servant’s duty.
He, wondering, question made: “What Moons so bright these?
What lofty, honored Sovereigns of might these?
What garden, most exalted, is this parterre?
What throng so bright and beautiful, the throng there?”
They answer gave: “Lo! Eden’s shining bowers these;
That radiant throng, the Heaven-born Youths and Hūrīs;
These two resplendent forms, bright as the fair moon,
These are the ever-faithful—Leylī, Mejnūn!
Since pure within the vale of love they sojourned,
And kept that purity till they to dust turned,
Are Eden’s everlasting bowers their home now,
To them the Hūrīs and the Youths as slaves bow:
Since these, while on the earth, all woe resigned met,
And patience aye before them in each grief set,
When forth they fled from this false, faithless world’s bound,
From all those pangs and sorrows they release found!”
Fuzūlī.
GAZEL
I began love’s art to study, divers chapters did I read;
Longing’s texts and parting’s sections a whole book would fill indeed;
Union formed a short abridgment, but the pangs of love for thee
Have their commentaries endless made each other to succeed.
O Nishānī, hath the master, Love, thus truly taught to thee:
“This a question hard whose answer from the loved one must proceed!”
Nishānī.
GAZEL
Hand in hand thy mole hath plotted with thy hair,
Many hearts made captive have they in their snare.
Thou in nature art an angel whom the Lord
In his might the human form hath caused to wear.
When he dealt out ’mongst his creatures union’s tray,
Absence from thee, God to me gave as my share.
Thou would’st deem that Power, the limner, for thy brows,
O’er the lights, thine eyes, two nūns had painted fair.
O Selīmī, on the sweetheart’s cheek the down
Is thy sighs’ fume, which, alas, hath rested there.
Selīmī.
GAZEL
Ta’en my sense and soul have those thy Leylī locks, thy glance’s spell,
Me, their Mejnūn, ’midst of love’s wild dreary desert they impel.
Since mine eyes have seen the beauty of the Joseph of thy grace,
Sense and heart have fall’n and lingered in thy chin’s sweet dimple-well.
Heart and soul of mine are broken through my passion for thy lips;
From the hand of patience struck they honor’s glass, to earth it fell.
The mirage, thy lips, O sweetheart, that doth like to water show;
For, through longing, making thirsty, vainly they my life dispel.
Since Selīmī hath the pearls, thy teeth, been praising, sense and heart
Have his head and soul abandoned, plunging ’neath love’s ocean-swell.