The sand is like acres of wet milk
Poured out under the moonlight;
It crawls up about your brown feet
Like wine trodden from white stars.
From the Arabic of John Duncan.
TWO SIMILES
You have taken away my cloak,
My cloak of weariness;
Take my coat also,
My many-coloured coat of life....
On this great nursery floor
I had three toys,
A bright and varnished vow,
A Speckled Monster, best of boys,
True friend to me, and more
Beloved and a thing of cost,
My doll painted like life; and now
One is broken and two are lost.
From the Arabic of John Duncan.
MELODIAN
I have been at this shooting-gallery too long.
It is monotonous how the little coloured balls
Make up and down on their silvery water thread;
It would be pleasant to have money and go instead
To watch your greasy audience in the threepenny stalls
Of the World-famous Caravan of Dance and Song.
And I want to go out beyond the turf fires there,
After I've looked at your just smiling face,
To that untented silent dark blue nighted place;
And wait such time as you will wish the noise all dumb
And drop your fairings and leave the funny man, and come ...
You have the most understanding face in all the fair.
From the Arabic of John Duncan.
THE LOST LADY
You are the drowned,
Star that I found
Washed on the rim of the sea
Before the morning.
You are the little dying light
That stopped me in the night.
From the Arabic of John Duncan.
LOVE BROWN AND BITTER
You know so well how to stay me with vapours
Distilled expertly to that unworthy end;
You know the poses of your body I love best
And that I am cheerful with your head on my breast,
You know you please me by disliking one friend;
You read up what amuses me in the papers.
Who knows me knows I am not of those fools
That gets tired of a woman who is kind to them,
Yet you know not how stifled you render me
By learning me so well, how I long to see
An unpractised girl under your clever phlegm,
A soul not so letter-perfect in the rules.
From the Arabic of John Duncan.
OKHOUAN
A mole shows black
Between her mouth and cheek.
As if a negro,
Coming into a garden,
Wavered between a purple rose
And a scarlet camomile.
From the Arabic.
LYING DOWN ALONE
I shall never see your tired sleep
In the bed that you make beautiful,
Nor hardly ever be a dream
That plays by your dark hair;
Yet I think I know your turning sigh
And your trusting arm's abandonment,
For they are the picture of my night,
My night that does not end.
From the Arabic of John Duncan.
OLD GREEK LOVERS
They put wild olive and acanthus up
With tufts of yellow wool above the door
When a man died in Greece and in Greek Islands,
Grey stone by the blue sea,
Or sage-green trees down to the water's edge.
How many clanging years ago
I, also withering into death, sat with him,
Old man of so white hair who only,
Only looked past me into the red fire.
At last his words were all a jumble of plum-trees
And white boys smelling of the sea's green wine
And practice of his lyre. Suddenly
The bleak resurgent mind
Called wonderfully clear: "What mark have I left?"
Crying girls with wine and linen
Washed the straight old body and wrapped up,
And set the doorward feet.
Later for me also under Greek sun
The pendant leaves in green and bitter flakes
Blew out to join the wastage of the world,
And wool, I take it, in the nests of birds.
From the Arabic of John Duncan.
NIGHT AND MORNING
The great brightness of the burning of the stars,
Little frightened love,
Is like your eyes,
When in the heavy dusk
You question the dark blue shadows,
Fearing an evil.
Below the night
The one clear line of dawn;
As it were your head
Where there is one golden hair
Though your hair is very brown.
From the Arabic (School of Ebn-el-Moattaz) (ninth century).
IN A YELLOW FRAME
Her hand tinted to gold with henna
Gave me a cup of wine like gold water,
And I said: The moon rise, the sun rise.
From the Arabic of Hefny-bey-Nassif (contemporary).
BECAUSE THE GOOD ARE NEVER FAIR
When she appears the daylight envies her garment,
The wanton daylight envies her garment
To show it to the jealous sun.
And when she walks,
All women tall and tiny
Want her figure and start crying.
Because of your mouth,
Long life to the Agata valley,
Long life to pearls.
Watchers have discovered paradise in your cheeks,
But I am undecided,
For there is a hint of the tops of flames
In their purple shining.
From the Arabic of Ahmed Bey Chawky (contemporary).
WHITE AND GREEN AND BLACK TEARS
Why are your tears so white?
Dear, I have wept so long
That my old tears grow white like my old hair.
Why are your tears so green?
Dear, the waters are wept away
And the green gall is flowing.
Why are your tears so black?
Dear, the weeping is over
And the black flash you loved is breaking.
From the Arabic (School of Ebn-el-Farid) (thirteenth century).
A CONCEIT
I hide my love,
I will not say her name.
And yet since I confess
I love, her name is told.
You know that if I love
It must be ... Whom?
From the Arabic of Ebn Kalakis Abu El Fath Nasrallah (eleventh century).
VALUES
Since there is excitement
In suffering for a woman,
Let him burn on.
The dust in a wolf's eyes
Is balm of flowers to the wolf
When a flock of sheep has raised it.
From the Arabic.
WHAT LOVE IS
Love starts with a little throb in the heart,
And in the end one dies
Like an ill-treated toy.
Love is born in a look or in four words,
The little spark that burnt the whole house.
Love is at first a look,
And then a smile,
And then a word,
And then a promise,
And then a meeting of two among flowers.
From the Arabic.
THE DANCING HEART
When she came she said:
You know that your love is granted,
Why is your heart trembling?
And I:
You are bringing joy for my heart
And so my heart is dancing.
From the Arabic of Urak El Hutail.
THE GREAT OFFENCE
She seemed so bored,
I wanted to embrace her by surprise;
But then the scalding waters
Fell from her eyes and burnt her roses.
I offered her a cup....
And came to paradise....
Ah, sorrow,
When she rose from the waves of wine
I thought she would have killed me
With the swords of her desolation....
Especially as I had tied her girdle
With the wrong bow.
From the Arabic of Abu Nuas (eighth century).
She was beautiful that evening and so gay....
In little games
My hand had slipped her mantle,
I am not sure
About her skirts.
Then in the night's curtain of shadows,
Heavy and discreet,
I asked and she replied:
To-morrow.
Next day I came
Saying, Remember.
Words of a night, she said, to bring the day.
From the Arabic of Abu Nuas (eighth century).
THREE QUEENS
Three sweet drivers hold the reins,
And hold the places of my heart.
A great people obeys me,
But these three obey me not.
Am I then a lesser king than love?
From the Arabic of Haroun El Raschid (eighth century).
HER NAILS
She is as wise as Hippocrates,
As beautiful as Joseph,
As sweet-voiced as David,
As pure as Mary.
I am as sad as Jacob,
As lonely as Jonah,
As patient as Job,
As unfortunate as Adam.
When I met her again
And saw her nails
Prettily purpled,
I reproached her for making up
When I was not there.
She told me gently
That she was no coquette,
But had wept tears of blood
Because I was not there,
And maybe she had dried her eyes
With her little hands.
I would like to have wept before she wept;
But she wept first
And has the better love.
Her eyes are long eyes,
And her brows are the bows of subtle strong men.
From the Arabic of Yazid Ebn Moauia (seventh century).
PERTURBATION AT DAWN
Day comes....
And when she sees the withering of the violet garden
And the saffron garden flowering,
The stars escaping on their black horse
And dawn on her white horse arriving,
She is afraid.
Against the sighing of her frightened breasts
She puts her hand;
I see what I have never seen,
Five perfect lines on a crystal leaf
Written with coral pens.
From the Arabic of Ebn Maatuk (seventeenth century).
THE RESURRECTION OF THE TATTOOED GIRL
Her hands are filled with what I lack,
And on her arms are pictures,
Looking like files of ants forsaking the battalions,
Or hail inlaid by broken clouds on green lawns.
She fears the arrows of her proper eyes
And has her hands in armour.
She has stretched her hands in a cup to me,
Begging for my heart.
She has circled me with the black magic of her brows
And shot small arrows at me.
The black curl that lies upon her temple
Is a scorpion pointing his needle at the stars.
Her eyes seem tight, tight shut;
But I believe she is awake.
From the Arabic of Yazid Ebn Moauia (seventh century).
MOALLAKA
The poets have muddied all the little fountains.
Yet do not my strong eyes know you, far house?
O dwelling of Abla in the valley of Gawa,
Speak to me, for my camel and I salute you.
My camel is as tall as a tower, and I make him stand
And give my aching heart to the wind of the desert.
O erstwhile dwelling of Abla in the valley of Gawa;
And my tribe in the valleys of Hazn and Samna
And in the valley of Motethalem!
Salute to the old ruins, the lonely ruins
Since Oum El Aythan gathered and went away.
Now is the dwelling of Abla
In a valley of men who roar like lions.
It will be hard to come to you, O daughter of Makhram.
* * * * *
Abla is a green rush
That feeds beside the water.
But they have taken her to Oneiza
And my tribe feeds in lazy Ghailam valley.
They fixed the going, and the camels
Waked in the night and evilly prepared.
I was afraid when I saw the camels
Standing ready among the tents
And eating grain to make them swift.
I counted forty-two milk camels,
Black as the wings of a black crow.
White and purple are the lilies of the valley,
But Abla is a branch of flowers.
Who will guide me to the dwelling of Abla?
From the Arabic of Antar (late sixth and early seventh centuries).
MOALLAKA
Rise and hold up the curved glass,
And pour us wine of the morning, of El Andar.
Pour wine for us, whose golden colour
Is like a water stream kissing flowers of saffron.
Pour us wine to make us generous
And carelessly happy in the old way.
Pour us wine that gives the miser
A sumptuous generosity and disregard.
O Oum-Amr, you have prevented me from the cup
When it should have been moving to the right;
And yet the one of us three that you would not serve
Is not the least worthy.
How many cups have I not emptied at Balbek,
And emptied at Damas and emptied at Cacerin!
More cups! more cups! for death will have his day;
His are we and he ours.
* * * * *
By herself she is fearless
And gives her arms to the air,
The limbs of a long camel that has not borne.
She gives the air her breasts,
Unfingered ivory.
She gives the air her long self and her curved self,
And hips so round and heavy that they are tired.
All these noble abundances of girlhood
Make the doors divinely narrow and myself insane.
Columns of marble and ivory in the old way,
And anklets chinking in gold and musical bracelets.
Without her I am a she-camel that has lost,
And howls in the sand at night.
Without her I am as sad as an old mother
Hearing of the death of her many sons.
From the Arabic of Amr Ebn Kultum (seventh century).
