She was a field of fruit and flowers
offering one like me no other enjoyment
than sight and sound.
Know then that I am not
one of those beasts gone wild
who take gardens for pastures.
translated by Lysander Kemp
Persian poet
from Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi
If a man or woman flails about, he not only
Smashes his house,
He burns the whole world down.
translated by Robert Bly
untitled poem by Jahan Malek Khatun
Your face usurps the fiery glow and hue
of roses;
And with your face here, what have I to do
with roses?
Your ringlets’ fragrance is so sweet, my friend,
No fragrant rose-scent could entice me to
seek roses–
Besides, the faithless roses’ scent will fade,
Which is a serious drawback, in my view
of roses;
And if the waters of eternal life
Had touched their roots, so that they bloomed anew,
these roses,
When could they ever form a bud as sweet
As your small mouth, which is more trim and true
than roses?
translated by Dick Davis
from Jahan Malek Khatun: 3
Last night, my love, my life, you lay with me,
I grasped your pretty chin, I fondled it,
And then I bit, and bit, your sweet lips till
I woke. . .It was my fingertips I bit.
translated by Dick Davis
from Jahan Malek Khatun: 2
I told my heart, “I can’t endure this tyranny!
He’s nothing, no one! What’s this bully’s love to me?”
My little heart, you’re like a boundless sea, it seems;
And common sense? A splinter somewhere on that sea.
translated by Dick Davis
from Jahan Malek Khatun: 1
The roses have all gone; “Goodbye,” we say; we must;
And I shall leave the busy world one day; I must;
My little room, my books, my love, my sips of wine–
All these are dear to me; they’ll pass away; they must.
translated by Dick Davis
advice from Hafez
My friend, hold back your heart from enemies,
Drink shining wine with handsome friends like these;
With art’s initiates undo your collar–
Stay buttoned up with ignoramuses.
translated by Dick Davis
Muslih-uddin Sa’di Shirazi on value
If every drop of dew were to become a pearl
The bazar would be full of them as of ass-shells.
translated by Edward Rehatsek
from The Golestan by Sa’di
I held in my hand a perfumed piece of clay
that came to me from a beloved’s hand.
I asked it, “Are you musk or ambergris?
Like fine wine, your smell intoxicates me.”
“I was,” it said, “a loathsome lump of clay
till someone set me down beside a rose.
Then my companion’s scent seeped into me.
Otherwise, I am only the earth I am.”
courtesy of my friend Richard Newman
from The Rubaiyat 2 by Omar Khayyam
Ah! my beloved, fill the cup that clears
To-day of past regrets and future fears–
To-morrow?–Why, to-morrow I may be
Myself with yesterday’s sev’n thousand years.
translated by Edward FitzGerald
Leonard Durso 