  KING of the wise who, long ago, Your tents built in the Persian sand, Let me your sweet contentment know, Here in my vigorous Western land. Some day, when I shall stand beside The grave where you have lain so long— At Nishapur your body died, But your soul lives in tender song— I’ll pour upon your tomb the wine Some Western grape has given me; I’ll speak some verse, some flowing line Born here, beyond the Western sea. And may the time be early night When torches in the desert glow, And in dim tents appears a light, While sounds the camel’s moaning, low. Then I would be at Nishapur, To stand in reverent pause and be One happy hour a worshiper, Your grave a Mecca made for me. Oh, my beloved, I shall taste The grape’s blood, as your songs have said, And pour it on the desert’s waste, A tribute to the ghostly dead Whose spirits hover there, and plan Strange journeys that can never end, But, in a ghostly caravan, For ages through the past extend. O, Muezzin, from the Tower of Night, Look you toward the tomb of him Who yearned in song for greater light And found it at the goblet’s brim! Forget him not, because he keeps Such silence; guard in light and gloom Until I reach the place he sleeps, With wine to pour upon his tomb. |
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