I live, and yet methinks I do not breathe,
I thirst, and drink, and drink, and thirst again,
I sleep, and yet I dream I am awake,
I hope for that I have; I have and want:
I sing and sigh; I love and hate at once.
Oh! tell me, restless soul, what uncouth jar
Doth cause such want in store, in peace such war?
I leave thee for awhile, my love, I leave thee with a sigh;
The fountain spring within my soul is playing in mine eye;
I do not blush to own the tear,--let, let it touch my cheek,
And what my lip has failed to tell, that drop perchance may speak.
Mavourneen! when again I seek my green isle in the West,
Oh, promise thou wilt share my lot, and set this heart at rest.
I leave thee for awhile, my love; but every hour will be
Uncheered and lonely till the one that brings me back to thee.
I know you little, I love you lots,
my love for you could fill ten pots,
fifteen buckets, sixteen cans,
three teacups, and four dishpans.
I KNOW my Love by his way of walking,
And I know my love by his way of talking,
And I know my love dressed in a suit of blue,
And if my Love leaves me, what will I do?
And still she cried, “I love him the best,
And a troubled mind, sure, can know no rest,”
And still she cried, “Bonny boys are few,
And if my Love leaves me, what will I do?”
There is a dance house in Mar’dyke,
And there my true love goes every night;
He takes a strange one upon his knee,
I know a man
who photographed the view he saw
from the window of the room where he made love
and not the face of the woman he loved there.
Translated by Chana Bloch
I have three loves who are all most dear.
Each one has cost me many a tear.
The one who is dead yet lives in me.
I were too poor had I less than three.
I have loved flowers that fade,
Within whose magic tents
Rich hues have marriage made
With sweet unmemoried scents:
A honeymoon delight-
A joy of love at sight,
That ages in an hour-
My song be like a flower!
I have loved airs that die
Before their charm is writ
Along a liquid sky
Trembling to welcome it.
Notes, that with pulse of fire
Proclaim the spirit's desire,
Then die, and are nowhere-
My song be like an air!
Die, song, die like a breath,
And wither as a bloom;
I have lived and I have loved;
I have waked and I have slept;
I have sung and I have danced;
I have smiled and I have wept;
I have won and wasted treasure;
I have had my fill of pleasure;
And all these things were weariness,
And some of them were dreariness;--
And all these things, but two things,
Were emptiness and pain:
And Love--it was the best of them;
And Sleep--worth all the rest of them,
Worth everything but Love to my spirit and my brain.
But still my friend, O Slumber,
I have got lost in the city of love,
I am being cleansed,
withdrawing myself from my head,
hands and feet.
I have got rid of my ego, and have attained my goal.
Thus it has all ended well.
O Bullah, the Lord pervades both the worlds;
None now appears a stranger to me.
I have fallen in love, O mother with the
Beautiful One, who knows no death,
knows no decay and has no form;
I have fallen in love, O mother with the
Beautiful One, who has no middle, has
no end, has no parts and has no features;
I have fallen in love, O mother with the
Beautiful One, who knows no birth and
knows no fear.
I have fallen in love, O mother with the
Beautiful One, who is without any family,
without any country and without any peer;
Chenna Mallikarjuna, the Beautiful, is my husband.
