The Garden of Bright Waters E-Book

Edward Powys Mathers

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

The Garden of Bright Waters: One Hundred and Twenty Asiatic Love Poems from various authors was translated by Edward Powys Mathers (1892–1939). He was an English translator and poet, and also a pioneer of compiling advanced cryptic crosswords. Powys Mathers was born in Forest Hill, London, the son of a newspaper proprietor. He was educated at Loretto and Trinity College, Oxford. I am hoping that some readers will look on this collection primarily as a book of poems. The finding and selection of material and the shaping of the verses is my principal part in it. Most of the songs have been written from, or by comparing, the literal translations of French and Italian scholars, checked wherever possible by my own knowledge. When my first and very great debt to these has been stated, there remains my debt to the late John Duncan, to Mr J. Wing, and to a friend, a distinguished writer both in Persian and Turkish, who wishes to remain unnamed. The kindness of these writers lies in trusting their work to my translation and helping me in that task. My book also owes much to suggestions prompted by the wide learning of Mr. L. Cranmer-Byng. My final debt is to him and to another generous critic. I have arranged my poems in the alphabetical order of their countries, and added short notes wherever I considered them necessary, at the instance of some kindly reviewers of an earlier book, which was not so arranged and provided.

Leseprobe

Edward Powys Mathers

The Garden of Bright Waters

One Hundred and Twenty Asiatic Love Poems

BookRix GmbH & Co. KG80331 Munich

The Garden of Bright Waters

One Hundred and Twenty Asiatic Love Poems

By Various Authors

Translated by Edward Powys Mathers

The Garden Of Bright Waters

One Hundred And Twenty Asiatic Love Poems

Translated by Edward Powys Mathers 1920

Dedication: To My Wife

INTRODUCTION

Head in hand, I look at the paper leaf;

It is still white.

I look at the ink

Dry on the end of my brush.

My soul sleeps.

Will it ever wake?

I walk a little in the pouring of the sun

And pass my hands over the higher flowers.

There is the soft green forest,

There are the sweet lines of the mountains

Carved with snow, red in the sunlight.

I see the slow march of the clouds,

I hear the crows jeering, and I come back

To sit and look at the paper leaf,

Which is still white

Under my brush.

From the Chinese of Chang-Chi (770-850).

THE GARDEN OF BRIGHT WATERS

AFGHANISTAN

AFGHANISTAN

THE PRINCESS OF QULZUM

(BALLADE BY NUR UDDIN)

I have seen a small proud face brimming with sunlight;

I have seen the daughter of the King of Qulzum passing from grace to grace.

Yesterday she threw her bed on the floor of her double house

And laughed with a thousand graces.

She has a little pearl and coral cap

And rides in a palanquin with servants about her

And claps her hands, being too proud to call.

I have seen a small proud face brimming with sunlight.

"My palanquin is truly green and blue;

I fill the world with pomp and take my pleasure;

I make men run up and down before me,

And am not as young a girl as you pretend.

I am of Iran, of a powerful house, I am pure steel.

I hear that I am spoken of in Lahore."

I have seen a small proud face brimming with sunlight.

I also hear that they speak of you in Lahore,

You walk with a joyous step,

Your nails are red and the palms of your hands are rosy.

A pear-tree with a fresh stem is in your palace gardens,

I would not that your mother should give my pear-tree

To twine with an evil spice-tree or fool banana.

I have seen a small proud face brimming with sunlight.

"The coins that my father gave me for my forehead

Throw rays and light the hearts of far men;

The ray of light from my red ring is sharper than a diamond.

I go about and about in pride as of hemp wine

And my words are chosen.

But I give you my honey cheeks, dear, I trust them to you."

I have seen a small proud face brimming with sunlight.

The words of my mouth are coloured and shining things;

And two great saints are my perpetual guards.

There is never a song of Nur Uddin but has in it a great achievement

And is as brilliant as a young hyacinth;

I pour a ray of honey on my disciples,

There is as it were a fire in my ballades.

I have seen a small proud face brimming with sunlight.

From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century).

COME, MY BELOVED!

Come, my beloved! And I say again: Come, my beloved!

The doves are moaning and calling and will not cease.

  Come, my beloved!

"The fairies have made me queen, and my heart is love.

Sweeter than the green cane is my red mouth."

  Come, my beloved!

The jacinth has spilled odour on your hair,

The balance of your neck is like a jacinth;

You have set a star of green between your brows.

  Come, my beloved!

Like lemon-trees among the rocks of grey hills

Are the soft colours of the airy veil

To your rose knee from your curved almond waist.

  Come, my beloved!

Your light breast veil is tawny brown with stags,

Stags with eyes of emerald, hunted by red kings.

  Come, my beloved!

Muhammad Din is wandering; he is drunken and mad;

For a year he has been dying. Send for the doctor!

  Come, my beloved!

From the Pus'hto of Muhammad Din Tilai (Afghans, nineteenth century).

BALLADE OF MUHAMMAD KHAN

She has put on her green robe, she has put on her double veil, my idol;

My idol has come to me.

She has put on her green robe, my love is a laughing flower;

Gently, gently she comes, she is a young rose, she has come out of the garden.

Gently she has shown her face, parting her veil, my idol;

My idol has come to me.

She has put on her green robe, my love is a young rose for me to break.

Her chin has the smooth colour of peaches and she guards it well;

She is the daughter of a Moghol house and well they guard her.

She put on her red jewels when she came with a noise of rings, my idol;

My idol has come to me.

She has put on her green robe, my love is the stem of a rose;

She breaks not, she is strong.

She has a throne, but comes into the woods for love.

I was well and she troubled me when she came to me in the evening, my idol;

My idol has come to me.

She has put on her green robe, her wrist is a sword.

The villages speak of her; the child is as fair as Badri.

She has red lips and six hundred and fifty beads upon her light blue scarf.

Give your garland to Muhammad Khan, my idol;

My idol has come to me.

From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century).

GHAZAL OF TAVAKKUL

To-day I saw Laila's breasts, the hills of a fair city

From which my heart might leap to heaven.

Her breasts are a garden of white roses

Having two drifted hills of fallen rose-leaves.

Her breasts are a garden where doves are singing

And doves are moaning with arrows because of her.

All her body is a flower and her face is Shalibagh;

She has fruits of beautiful colours and the doves abide there.

Over the garden of her breasts she combs the gold rain of her hair....

You have killed Tavakkul, the faithful pupil of Abdel Qadir Gilani.

From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century).

GHAZAL OF SAYYID KAMAL

I am burning, I am crumbled into powder,

I stand to the lips in a tossing sea of tears.

Like a stone falling in Hamun lake I vanish;

I return no more, I am counted among the dead.

I am consumed like yellow straw on red flames;

You have drawn a poisoned sword along my throat to-day.

People have come to see me from far towns,

Great and small, arriving with bare heads,

For I have become one of the great historical lovers.

In the desire of your red lips

My heart has become a red kiln, like a terrace of roses.

It is because she does not trouble about the bee on the rose

That my heart is taken.

"I have blackened my eyes to kill you, Sayyid Kamal.

I kill you with my eyelids; I am Natarsa, the Panjabie, the pitiless."

From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century).

GHAZAL OF SAYYID AHMAD

My heart is torn by the tyranny of women very quietly;

Day and night my tears are wearing away my cheeks very quietly.

Life is a red thing like the sun setting very quietly;

Setting quickly and heavily and very quietly.

If you are to buy heaven by a good deed, to-day the market is open;

To-morrow is a day when no man buys,

And the caravan is broken up very quietly.

The kings are laughing and the slaves are laughing; but for your sake

Sayyid Ahmad is walking and mourning very quietly.

From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century).

GHAZAL, IN LAMENT FOR THE DEAD, OF PIR MUHAMMAD

The season of parting has come up with the wind;

My girl has hollowed my heart with the hot iron of separation.

Keep away, doctor, your roots and your knives are useless.

None ever cured the ills of the ill of separation.

There is no one near me noble enough to be told;

I tear my collar in the "Alas! Alas!" of separation.

She was a branch of santal; she closed her eyes and left me.

Autumn has come and she has gone, broken to pieces in the wind of separation.

I am Pir Muhammad and I am stumbling away to die;

She stamped on my eyes with the foot of separation.

From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century).

BALLADE OF NURSHALI

Come in haste this dusk, dear child. I will be on the water path

When your girl friends go laughing by the road.

"Come in haste this dusk; I have become your nightingale,

And the young girls leave me alone because of you.

I give you the poppy of my mouth and my fallen hair."

  Come in haste this dusk, dear child.

"I have dishevelled and spread out my hair for you;

Take my wrist, for there is no shame

And my father has gone out.

Sit near me on this red bed quietly."

  Come in haste this dusk, dear child.

"Sit near me on this red bed, I lift the poppy to your lips;

Your hand is strong upon my breast;

My beauty is a garden and you the bird in the flowering tree."

  Come in haste this dusk, dear child.

"My beauty is a garden with crimson flowers."

But I cannot reach over the thicket of your hair.

This is Nurshali sighing for the garden;

  Come in haste this dusk, dear child.

From the Pus'hto (Afghans).

GHAZAL OF MUHAMMAD DIN TILAI

The world is fainting,

And you will weep at last.

The world is fainting

And falling into a swoon.

The world is turning and changing;

The world is fainting,

And you will weep at last.

Look at the love of Farhad, who pierced a mountain

And pierced a brass hill for the love of Shirin.

The world is fainting,

And you will weep at last.

Qutab Khan of the Ranizais was in love

And death became the hostess of his lady.

The world is fainting,

And you will weep at last.

Adam loved Durkho, and they were separated.

You know the story;

There is no lasting love.

The world is fainting,

And you will weep at last.

Muhammad Din is ill for the matter of a little honey;

This is a moment to be generous.

The world is fainting,

And you will weep at last.

From the Pus'hto (Afghans, nineteenth century).

MICRA

When you lie with me and love me,

You give me a second life of young gold;

And when you lie with me and love me not,

I am as one who puts out hands in the dark

And touches cold wet death.

From the Pus'hto of Mirza Rahchan Kayil (Afghans, nineteenth century).