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Title: Hafiz in London
Author: Justin H. McCarthy
Release date: March 8, 2016 [eBook #51392]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
Credits: E-text prepared by Emmanuel Ackerman and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HAFIZ IN LONDON ***
The Project Gutenberg eBook, Hafiz in London, by Hāfiz, 14th cent., Translated by Justin H. (Justin Huntly) McCarthy
| Note: | Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/hafizinlondontra00hafiuoft |
HAFIZ IN LONDON
PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON
HAFIZ IN LONDON
BY
JUSTIN HUNTLY McCARTHY, M.P.
ﺍﻛﺮ ﺑﺰﻟﻒ ﺫﺭﺍﺯ ﺗﻮ ﺩﺳﻦ ﻣﺎ ﻧﺮ ﺳﺪ
Agar be zolf-e daraz-e to dast-e ma narasad
ﻛﻨﺎﻩ ﻧﺨﺖ ﭘﺮﻳﺸﺎﻥ ﻭ ﺩﺳﺖ ﻛﻮﺗﻪ ﻣﺎﺳﺖ
gonah-e bakht-e parishan o dast-e kutah-e ma-st
London
CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1886
[The right of translation is reserved]
DEDICATION.
Ferangis, at thy feet I lay
These roses from the haunted coast
Of Faristan, whose poets boast
Their Rocknabad and Mosellay;
For I was in Shiraz to-day,
With ancient Hafiz for my host,
Who, like a comfortable ghost,
With Persian roses crowned my stay.
They are thy tribute from the land
Of Khayyam and our Khalifate,
For on their crimson folds of fate
A wizard ciphered with his wand
Words which I dare not here translate,
But you will read and understand.
CONTENTS.
HAFIZ IN LONDON.
HAFIZ IN LONDON.
Hafiz in London! even so.
For not alone by Rukni’s flow
The ruddy Persian roses grow.
Not only ’neath the cypress groves,
With soul on fire the singer roves,
And tells the laughing stars his loves.
Here in this city—where I brood
Beside the river’s darkling flood,
And feed the fever in my blood
With Eastern fancies quaintly traced
On yellow parchment, half effaced
In verses subtly interlaced—
Men eat and drink, men love and die,
Beneath this leaden London sky,
As eastward where the hoopoos fly,
And through the tranquil evening air
A muezzin from the turret stair
Summons all faithful souls to prayer.
And we who drink the Saki’s wine
Believe its juice no less divine
Than filled, Hafiz, that cup of thine.
Master and most benign of shades,
Before thy gracious phantom fades
To Mosellay’s enchanted glades,
Breathe on my lips, and o’er my brain
Some comfort for thy child, whose pain
Strives as you strove, but strives in vain.
When sundown sets the world on fire,
The music of the Master’s lyre
Deadens the ache of keen desire.
Reading this painted Persian page,
Where, half a lover, half a sage,
You built your heart a golden cage,
My fancy, skimming southern seas,
Wanders at twilight where the breeze
Flutters the dark pomegranate trees.
We all are sultans in our dreams
Of gardens where the sunlight gleams
On fairer flowers and clearer streams;
And thus in dreams I seek my home
Where dim Shiraz, dome after dome,
Smiles on the water’s silver foam;
The dancing girls, with tinkling feet
And many-coloured garments, beat
Their drums adown the twisted street;
And while the revel sways along,
The scented, flower-crowned, laughing throng
Seem part and parcel of thy song.
Hafiz, night’s rebel angels sweep
Across the sun; I pledge you deep,
And smiling, sighing, sink to sleep.
MEMORY.
Sitting silent in the twilight, faces of my former loves
Float about my fancy softly, like a silver flight of doves.
Brighter than the stars of heaven is the shining of their eyes,
Sweeter are their angel voices than the speech of Paradise.
I am old and grey and weary, winter in my blood and brain;
But to-night these haunting phantoms conjure up my youth again.
Lovingly I name them over, all that world of gracious girls,
Almond-eyed and jasmine-bosomed, like a poet stringing pearls.
In my tranquil cypress mazes just outside the sleepy town,
Blooms a tribe of laughing lilies fairer than a kingly crown.
Every lily in the garden wears a woman’s gracious name,
Every lily in the garden set my spirit once aflame;
And amongst that throng of lilies scarcely whiter than his hair,
Hafiz sits and dreams at sunset of the flowers no longer fair;
Of the sweethearts dead and buried whom I worshipped long ago,
When this beard as grey as ashes was as sable as the sloe.
I would weep if I were wiser, but the idle child of song
Leaves reflection to the Mullah, sorrow to the Sufi throng.
Am I wrong to be contented in the sunlight to rehearse
Pleasant tales of love and lovers in my honey-laden verse?
While the vinepress with the life-blood of the purple clusters drips,
I forget how slowly, surely, day by day to darkness slips,
Heedless how beyond the gateway in the field the nations jar,
Hand on throat and hand on sabre in the trampled lanes of war.
Ah! ’tis better on this pleasant river bank to lie reclined,
While the ghosts of old affections fill the harem of my mind.
Think no more of love and lasses, Hafiz; you can scarcely hold
The Koran with trembling fingers. Hafiz, you are growing old.
ELD.
Hafiz, you are growing old;
Hafiz, all the girls abandon
Bards whose blood is getting cold,
Bards whom Time has laid his hand on.
All the merry songs you sung
In the days when you were young,
Are not worth a feather’s weight
To arrest the fist of Fate
When it jogs your shifting sand on.
Hafiz, though a tinge of grey
Shames the locks that once were sable,
Drink and laugh the world away,
Swear that eld’s a housewife’s fable;
Vow that youth is always yours
While the graceful gait allures,
While the perfume haunts the rose,
While a ruddy balsam flows
From the flagon on the table.
Just a word within your ear,
Hafiz: you’re a craven creature
If you waste a single tear
On the thought that every feature
Of the fairest face a maid
Ever showed the sun must fade;
Rather bid your mistress weigh
Youth and beauty’s barren stay,
And a wiser lesson teach her.
Tell her youth was made for love;
Tell her wine was made for drinking;
Tell her that in heaven above
Mahmoud and his saints are winking
At the golden jest of youth;
Tell her wisdom’s wisest truth
Is, be merry while you may,
Cease regretting yesterday,
Or about to-morrow thinking.
LONG AGO.
All my youth’s desires are buried,
Each within its narrow grave;
Long ago their ghosts were ferried
O’er Jaihun’s enchanted wave;
Wild ambitions bright and brave,
Loves that made me serve a slave,
All have slipped away like snow
Long ago.
Stars in which my youth delighted
Vanish from the heavenly band,
And I wander a benighted
Stranger in a stranger land;
There is no one left to stand
By my side or take my hand,
Of the friends I worshipped so
Long ago.
One sweet name of all the number
Haunts the chambers of my brain,
One sweet shape disturbs my slumber,
Loved too well and loved in vain.
Ah, Ferangis! give again
Half the pleasure, all the pain,
That my boyhood used to know
Long ago.
These are dreams: I must remember
That my youthful days are dead,
That the rigours of December
Grizzle e’en a poet’s head.
Gone is gone, and dead is dead,
And no roses bloom as red
As the roses used to blow
Long ago.
Though my eyes pursue the swallow
As he travels towards the sun,
Aged limbs refuse to follow
Where the fancies lightly run.
Hafiz, cease, the game is done,
Life’s fantastic robe is spun;
Fate marked out the way to go
Long ago.
You were passionate, my poet,
In your manhood’s golden dawn;
Seized the seed of life to sow it
On the tulip-tinted lawn;
Now you sit at home and yawn,
Withered, grizzled, bent and drawn,
By the hearth: you scorned its glow
Long ago.
What is left? a sigh, a shudder,
For my past, and for the goal
Where, a boat without a rudder,
Drifts my tempest-troubled soul;
Ah! death’s angel, taking toll,
Shall I find within thy bowl
Better wine than used to flow
Long ago?
VANITY.
I dreamt all night of your cold caresses;
Your kisses froze on my lips like flakes
Of pitiless snow that chills and breaks
The warm heart snared in your sombre tresses.
I woke with a groan in the livid morning,
Groaned and swore I would break away
From the bitter bondage of love, and repay
Laughter with laughter, and scorn with scorning.
Ere noon was hot in the heavens, I met you;
You had but to smile as you passed, and lo!
I was your lover again. Heigho!
Hate you or love you, I can’t forget you.
KAIF.
Mine be the musk and the music, mine be the laughing girl;
Mine be the ample flagon, brimmed with the blood of the vine;
Mine the divan encushioned, watching the dancers twirl;
Mine the narghili serpent, breathing its soul divine.
Others can juggle with statecraft, others can lust for command;
Others can envy their fellows woman or vintage or gold;
Others can wrangle for title, fight for a rood of land;
Others think souls and bodies things to be bought and sold.
Such as they are, God made them; such as they are, God guides;
Such as they are, they do their task, fill place in the world awhile;
Such as they are, they eat and drink, and sleep on the breasts of their brides;
Such as they are, they sicken and die—may jackals their graves defile.
I for my part am happy, I for my part am calm,
I for my part rejoice to the full in the hour that glideth by,
I for my part with all my heart delight in the vineyard’s balm,
I for my part will love and laugh till my moment comes to die.
Grant me, Allah, digestion; grant me, Allah, desire;
Grant me a mistress with almond eyes and cinnamon-scented breath;
Grant me a golden vessel filled with the vineyard’s fire;
Grant me, Allah, a lazy life, and later a lazy death.
YOU AND I.
Spare your censures, worthy friend, on my love of drinking;
Shut your senses, if you please, to the glasses clinking.
Only, while you rest with me, prithee keep your curses
For some other fellow’s wine, other fellow’s verses.
If I run a tavern score, you don’t pay the reckoning;
If the Lotus-maiden nods, not to you she’s beckoning.
Who shall say behind the Veil which is good and evil?
Who shall say if you or I journey to the devil?
Very varied laws of life you and I are firm on;
Which of us, my friend, is text? which of us is sermon?
Every sober man or drunk seeks his soul’s ideal;
In the tavern and the mosque love alike is real.
Paradise is fair indeed; but this side of heaven
There is joy in noonday sun, joy in shades of even.
Be not boastful of thy worth, for who knows when mounted
To the final judgment-seat how his sum is counted?
Sanctimonious folk like you, filled with moral phrases,
May be sent, to your surprise, packing off to blazes;
While poor rogues like us, who drink ere the vintage fail us,
May be plucked to Paradise from this very alehouse.
CONSOLATION.
Weep not for the lost Yusuf, in Canaan his eyes shall close;
Weep not for your wasted garden, it shall blossom like the rose.
Weep not for your nights of revel, weep not for your days of tears,
For an hour’s repentance cancels all the sins of sixty years.
Weep not, soul with sorrow laden, once again the spring returns;
Singer of the night, your planet once again in heaven burns.
Weep not for your boyhood’s passions, weep not for your youth’s despair;
Every poet’s heart was tangled sometime in a woman’s hair.
Weep not, watcher for to-morrow, that thou never canst prevail
With the stars to tell the secret shrouded up behind the Veil.
Weep not if life’s gloomy pathway terrifies your wandering soul,
For the byeway, not the highway, best conducteth to the goal.
Weep not for the loss of brother, grieve not at the gain of foe;
Would you with Allah be angry when the winds of winter blow?
Weep not, Hafiz, poor and lonely, but not all unhappy man,
While your life’s as true and upright as ordained by Alkoran.
LOTUS.
I love the Lotus-blossom when it wreathes
Its painted petals in my sweetheart’s tresses,
And she, enchanted by its odour, breathes
Soft words of love, and soothes with soft caresses.
I love the Lotus-blossom when it lies
On the white bosom of a sleeping woman,
And falls and rises as the dreamer sighs,
For that love’s sake she yet has told to no man.
I love the Lotus-blossom, for it grows
On a lone grave beside a silent river;
There my youth’s mistress takes her last repose:
I loved, I hated, and I now forgive her.
PHILOSOPHY FOR OTHERS.
Salute the summer, breathe the breath of God,
Be happy while you can, for by-and-by
You that are now so full of life must die,
And redder roses blossom from your sod.
Believe me, brother, that behind the Veil
A harp is touched, and one is singing to it
A song of counsel, if you only knew it;
When wilt thou list, and let that song prevail?
Ask not poor Hafiz to admonish you
With whom you should frequent, with whom be drinking,
For surely half an hour of tranquil thinking
Will teach you better what you ought to do.
The road that leads us to the Friend at last
Is hard to travel, full of fear, temptation;
But think, my brother, think of the elation
In looking back along the road you’ve past.
Cease this perplexing problem to revolve;
Him the world clutches with a thousand fingers
Who on the pathway of his purpose lingers
To solve the riddle none were meant to solve.
For every flower that in the meadow blows,
Is like a book God opened to confess on
His secret purpose. But canst read the lesson
Writ in the purple petals of the rose?
And yet, O Hafiz! thou that talkest so wise
Of prudence, and of patience, and compassion,
Thy heart is all on fire with foolish passion
For one fair face and two tormenting eyes.
WISDOM.
Weep not for the waning rose
Sigh not when the south wind blows,
Drown reflection in the can,
Dissipated Mussulman;
Better to be glad than sad,
By the waves of Rocknabad.
If the truth must be confest,
Youth’s a juggle, love’s a jest,
Life’s a comic caravan,
Discontented Mussulman;
Better to be glad than sad,
By the waves of Rocknabad.
Eat your crust and drink your wine,
Deem the girl you love divine,
Make you merry for a span,
Philosophic Mussulman;
Better to be glad than sad,
By the waves of Rocknabad.
RENUNCIATION.
Thus Allah makes proclamation:
Ye that seek for peace of mind,
What ye seek will only find
In the word renunciation.
Must I spill the wine I’m drinking,
Must I practise what I preach,
Ere Mohammed’s hand will reach
Out to save my soul from sinking?
Must I shrink from soft caresses,
Must I turn my eyes away,
Must my heart no longer stay
In the tangle of your tresses?
Talk no more; I’ll not believe it;
Love is far too sweet to lose,
And while wine is in the cruse,
By my beard I’ll never leave it.
Hafiz, if the dedication
Of thy being must belong
Thus to woman, wine, and song,
Cease to preach renunciation.
AFTER RHAMAZAN.
Thank Allah! the fast is over;
Thank Allah! the feast is here;
And at last each jolly lover
Of the vintage lives in clover
Through the sweetest of the year.
Hide thy visage, sour ascetic;
Go thy ways, thy hour has past;
While all revellers poetic
Join in union sympathetic,
Drinking full and drinking fast.
Why should I incur reproaches
If I like a stoup of wine?
Thank Allah! the hour approaches
When the jolly tapster broaches
Liquor more than half divine.
He that drains a decent flagon
At the wine house, can ignore
How the tongues of envy wag on.
Think how dull their days must drag on,
Who run up no wine-house score.
For Allah’s illumination,
Shining on this rosy tide,
Finds no smug dissimulation,
Calling out for reprobation,
Fair without and foul inside.
Clean our lives, our language civil,
Alkoran’s law understood;
And we never let the devil
Catch us calling good things evil,
And the things of evil good.
Where’s the harm of my carouses
With the vineyard’s sanguine flood?
If I drink till dawn arouses
All the Muftis from their houses,
Do I drink my brother’s blood?
Hafiz, cease thy soul to trouble
With the wherefore and the how;
Laugh and love, for life’s a bubble;
Drink till everything grows double,
And the roses leave your brow.
LONELY.
I am lonely, very lonely, for the girl who stole my heart
Shines a star in other heavens, plays another lover’s part,
While I sit in sombre silence, hearing how my heart will beat,
When I catch the faintest footfall sounding down my dreary street.
Is it she, or else some message sent from her to soothe my pain,
Falling on the thirsty seeds of passion like a holy rain?
No, the sounds die out in silence, and the twilight deepens down,
And the orisons of evening breathe above the darkening town;
But my mosque is not the Mufti’s, for my beacon in the gloom
Is the crimson lamp-light floating from the tavern’s warmest room.
There I sit and drug my sorrow to a sleep that seems like death,
There forget that I have ever kissed her lips and felt her breath
From the parted smiling petals of the rose-flower of her mouth
Breathe upon my eyes and hair the perfumes of the odorous south.
It is war ’twixt wine and memory; on the tavern’s trampled sill
I will plant my colours proudly, ruddy as the drops that fill
Yonder jars, whose prisoned magic slays regret and saps desire,
Burning folly from my bosom with the vineyard’s liquid fire.
Woe is me! I boast untimely; even as I lift the cup,
On the purple flood the face of the beloved comes floating up.
COURAGE.
My soul rose out of its sleep, and said
There were angels once, but they all are dead;
And heaven is empty, and cold and grey
As a world whose heat has burnt away.
The leaves of the tree of life are shed,
The bird who sang in the boughs has fled,
The coffin of night shrouds the corpse of the day,
And winter withers the mirth of May.
Allah and Shitan have gone to bed,
The prophets and saints are lapped in lead,
The shrines are shattered and no men pray,
The law is broken and none obey.
The roses of youth are no longer red,
Bitter life’s wine is, bitter its bread,
The lips of the poets are stopped with clay,
And beauty fades into dull decay.
Then I turned me to Alkoran and read,
And Mohammed whispered, ‘Hold up thy head.
Sin is an enemy hard to slay;
Cry Allah ’l ’Akbar, and fight your way.’