Poems by Edward Powys Mathers

Although I shall not see his face

I made a bitter song

I hide my love,

Under the leaves and cool flowers

Joy fills my eyes, remembering your hair, with tears,

I hear a woman singing in my garden,

The rain is due to fall,

Before you love,

When I am cold and undesirous and my lids lie dead,

Was one night,

I have lacquered my teeth to find a husband.

One moment I place your two bright pearls against my robe,

This night,

She was beautiful that evening and so gay....

In the fifth month,

Let the wind's breath

Come to me to-day wearing your green collar,

A twist of fresh flowers on your dark hair,

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

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

When she appears the daylight envies her garment,

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

Touch my hands with your fingers, yellow wallflower.

Brother, my thought of you

Lions tremble at my claws;

Your face upon a drop of purple wine

The crows have wakened me

Here are the doleful rains,

A love-sick heart dies when the heart is whole,

Ever your rose face or black curls are with Shaguil;

Love brings the tiny sweat into your hair

If you do not want your heart

Beauty with the flame shawl, do not repulse me;

Grief is hard upon me, Master, for she has left me;

The lover to his lass: I have fallen before your door.

The world passes, nothing lasts, and the creation of men

The world is fainting,

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

I am burning, I am crumbled into powder,

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

The season of parting has come up with the wind;

I was gathering

Tears in the moonlight,

Kill me if you will not love me.

It is hard for a man to tell

She is as wise as Hippocrates,

Young man,

Not a stone from my black sling

I asked my love: "Why do you make yourself so beautiful?"

Her hand tinted to gold with henna

The women who were girls a long time ago

Reading in my book this cold night,

I desire the door-sill of my beloved

Head in hand, I look at the paper leaf;

The chief flower

Seeing that I adore you,

You know so well how to stay me with vapours

I shall never see your tired sleep

I have been at this shooting-gallery too long.

When you lie with me and love me,

Ever at the far side of the current

Rise and hold up the curved glass,

The poets have muddied all the little fountains.

Now that the wind has taught your veil to show your eyes and hair,

The great brightness of the burning of the stars,

It is late at night

A mole shows black

They put wild olive and acanthus up

Remembering what passed

Paradise, my darling, know that paradise,

Lonely rose out-splendouring legions of roses,

Day comes....

Your eyes are black like water-melon pips,

The sand is like acres of wet milk

See you have dancers and wine and a girl like one of the angels

As water runs in the river, so runs time;

I sit on a white wood box

Do not believe that ink is always black,

How can a heart play any more with life,

I have seen a pathway shaded by green great trees,

Old bamboos are about my house,

My dreams are bubbles of cool light,

In a life where the clocks

Your arm should only be

When she came she said:

I dreamed that I was touching her eyelids, and I awoke

Softly into the saddle

I am the Gao flower high in a tree,

I'm a girl of Ke-Mo village

She seemed so bored,

Fair journey, O holy swan with gold wings;

The jade staircase is bright with dew.

Clear River twists nine times about

You are the drowned,

The Khan.

The young lady shows like a thing of light

My desires are like the white snows on Fuji

(Ballade By Nur Uddin)

Her hands are filled with what I lack,

Roses are a wandering scent from heaven.

I made search for you all my life, and when I found you

At the head of a thousand roaring warriors,

I am in love with a child dreaming at the window.

Clear diamond heart,

Three sweet drivers hold the reins,

The greater and the lesser ills:

Lily of Streams lay by my side last night

You have taken away my cloak,

Since there is excitement

Aischa was mine,

I still walk slowly on the river bank

Here is the wind in the morning;

We have walked over the high grass under the wet trees

We were two green rushes by opposing banks,

Love starts with a little throb in the heart,

Why are your tears so white?

Winter scourges his horses

It rained last night,

The white frost covers all the arbute-trees,

You do not want me, Zohrah.