SONNETS FROM HAFEZ & other verses
Transcriber's Note:
The cover was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
NOTE
The last fifteen pieces in this book, which are founded on odes of Hafez, are not translations. Their aim is rather to convey if possible something of the original spirit than to give a faithful rendering of either thought or form; & I have not scrupled to omit, insert, alter or even deliberately to pervert the idea as fancy or feeling dictated. Some of the poems follow the Persian fairly closely (especially nos. 30, 31, 34, & 35); others are merely founded on or suggested by one or two couplets.
No. 4 was suggested by a Persian dialect quatrain by Baba Tahir.
The remainder are original.
1
2
3
4
5 ON A HILL
6 AFTER MUSIC
7
8
9
10
11
12 1919
13 SONG
14
15
16
17
18
19 A YOUTH
20
21 ATTAINMENT
22
23
24 DAWN
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
INDEX OF FIRST LINES
| NO. | |
|---|---|
| When sunlight faileth | 1 |
| I called to fading day | 2 |
| O youth’s young cloudlet, O freshness free | 3 |
| Wend I, wander I, past all worlds that be | 4 |
| Eyes that o’er the landscape fly | 5 |
| O what availeth thee thy melting mood | 6 |
| All things born to break | 7 |
| If there be any power in passion’s prayer | 8 |
| In love’s great ocean, whose calm-shelter’d shore | 9 |
| When sorrow hath outsoar’d our nature’s clime | 10 |
| O gentle weariness | 11 |
| Peace, for whose presence we did erewhile call | 12 |
| Beauty is a waving tree | 13 |
| Wheresoever beauty flies | 14 |
| When first to earth thy gentle spirit came | 15 |
| For sake of these two splendours do the wise | 16 |
| She hath not beauty, that ill-fortun’d gem | 17 |
| When thou art gone, & when are gone all those | 18 |
| Play thou on men as on a harp’s string | 19 |
| Go, book: go, vessel laden with the mind | 20 |
| When the strong climber his last mountain-crest | 21 |
| Since neither man’s proud pomp & kingly name | 22 |
| Pureness of pale moon, loneness of far skies | 23 |
| After Hafez | |
| I saw fair Fortune, one clear morning, touch | 24 |
| Come let us drink & deeply drown | 25 |
| Once more, O happy hill & peaceful plain | 26 |
| Tell me not, mournful Preacher, that to prize | 27 |
| What madness ’twas, I know not, that thus enchanted me | 28 |
| She went.—O whither too, O one true love | 29 |
| I said, ‘O heavenly Leader, O truth’s day | 30 |
| Where is the pious doer? & I the estray’d one, where? | 31 |
| I said, ‘Thou knowest, O all-knowing Friend | 32 |
| My heart the chamber of His musing is | 33 |
| Fair is the leisure of life’s garden-ground | 34 |
| Thus spake at dawn to the fresh-open’d rose | 35 |
| Though beauty’s tress be strayed, ’tis beauteous still | 36 |
| Arise, O cup-bearer, & bring | 37 |
| Our toil is He, & eke our journey’s end | 38 |
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