Month: March 2019

The pretty parrot was the next to speak,

Clothed all in green, with sugar in her beak,

And round her neck a circle of pure gold.

Even the falcon cannot boast so bold

A loveliness – earth’s variegated green

Is but the image of her feathers’ sheen

And when she talks the fascinating sound

Seems sweet as costly sugar finely ground;

She trilled: ‘I have been caged by heartless men,

But my desire is to be free again;

If I could reassert my liberty

I’d find the stream of immortality

Guarded by Khezr – his cloak is green like mine,

And this shared colour is an open sign

I am his equal or equivalent.

Only the stream Khezr watches could content

My thirsting soul – I have no wish to seek

This Simorgh’s throne of which you love to speak.’

There was a king whose comely daughter’s grace

Was such that any man who glimpsed her face

Declared himself in love. Like starless dusk

Her dark hair hung, soft-scented like fine musk;

The charm of her slow, humid eyes awoke

The depths of sleeping love, and when she spoke,

No sugar was as sweet as her lips’ sweet;

No rubies with their colour could compete.

A dervish saw her, by the will of Fate.

From his arrested hand the crust he ate

Dropped unregarded, and the princess smiled.

This glance lived in his heart – the man grew wild

With ardent love, with restless misery;

For seven years he wept continually

And was content to live alone and wait,

Abject, among stray dogs, outside her gate.

At last, affronted by this fool and tired

Of his despair, her serving-men conspired

To murder him. The princess heard their plan,

Which she divulged to him. “O wretched man,”

She said, “how could you hope for love between

A dervish and the daughter of a queen?

You cannot live outside my palace door;

Be off with you and haunt these streets no more.

If you are here tomorrow you will die!”

The dervish answered her:

“That day when I First saw your beauty I despaired of life;

Why should I fear the hired assassin’s knife?

The hoopoe answered him:

‘Dear nightingale,

This superficial love which makes you quail

Is only for the outward show of things.

Renounce delusion and prepare your wings

For our great quest; sharp thorns defend the rose

And beauty such as hers too quickly goes.

True love will see such empty transience

For what it is – a fleeting turbulence

That fills your sleepless nights with grief and blame –

Forget the rose’s blush and blush for shame!

Each spring she laughs,

not for you, as you say,

But at you – and has faded in a day.