Cherry plum blossom in an old tin jug —
Oh, it is lovely, beautiful and fair,
With sun on it and little shadows mixed
All in among the fragrant wonder there.
Cherry plum blossom on the workroom bench
Where we can see it all our working hours.
In all my garden days of ladyhood,
I never met girls who so loved sweet flowers.
Cherish red, love, for the beautiful season is tinged with red!
Rosy is the glow on laughing Radha's teeth
And scarlet are the bangles on her exquisite hands.
Cherish red, love, for the beautiful season is tinged with red!
Deep red are the flowers that dropp from the kesudo tree,
The dust that blows is rusty and brown,
Red are the beaks of our feathered friends, the parrot and the myna!
Cherish red, love, for the beautiful season is tinged with red!
Red are the garments of all my friends, whose braids have come off,
Change me, O heav'ns, into the ruby stone,
That on my love's fair locks doth hang in gold:
Yet leave me speech, to her to make my moan;
And give me eyes, her beauties to behold.
Or, if you will not make my flesh a stone,
Make her hard heart seem flesh, that now seems none.
I felt and listened and looked around
Everything I loved was safe and sound.
Everything was the same as it was before
and it promised to stay for evermore.
I imagined my life changed and without
the things I loved. There came a doubt...
I felt and listened and all was boring
Everything I loved felt so annoying.
So had changed the things I admired,
the love was gone and it made me tired.
In the mazes of loitering people, the watchful and furtive,
The shadows of tree-trunks and shadows of leaves,
In the drowse of the sunlight, among the low voices,
I suddenly face you,
Your dark eyes return for a space from her who is with you,
They shine into mine with a sunlit desire,
They say an 'I love you, what star do you live on?'
They smile and then darken,
And silent, I answer 'You too-I have known you,-I love you!-'
And the shadows of tree-trunks and shadows of leaves
One of the requirements for society is to attend to the affairs of thy household and also at the house of God.
Tell thy tale according to thy hearer’s temper,
If thou knowest him to be biased to thee.
Every wise man who sits with Mejnun
Speaks of nothing but the story of Laila’s love
A virtuous and beauteous youth
Was pledged to a chaste maiden.
I read that in the great sea
They fell into a vortex together.
When a sailor came to take his hand,
Lest he might die in that condition,
He said in anguish from the waves:
‘Leave me. Take the hand of my love.’
Whilst saying this, he despaired of life.
In his agony he was heard to exclaim:
‘Learn not the tale of love from the wretch
Who forgets his beloved in distress.’
Thus the lives of the lovers terminated.
It is related that the qazi of Hamdan, having conceived affection towards a farrier-boy and the horseshoe of his heart being on fire, he sought for some time to meet him, roaming about and seeking for opportunities, according to the saying of chroniclers:
That straight tall cypress my eyes beheld
It robbed me of my heart and threw me down.
Those wanton eyes have taken my heart with a lasso.
If thou desirest to preserve thy heart shut thy eyes.
A king of the Arabs, having been informed of the relations subsisting between Laila and Mejnun, with an account of the latter’s insanity, to the effect that he had in spite of his great accomplishments and eloquence, chosen to roam about in the desert and to let go the reins of self-control from his hands; he ordered him to be brought to his presence, and this having been done, he began to reprove him and to ask him what defect he had discovered in the nobility of the human soul that he adopted the habits of beasts and abandoned the society of mankind. Mejnun replied:
A man in patched garments’ accompanied us in a caravan to the Hejaz and one of the Arab amirs presented him with a hundred dinars to spend upon his family but robbers of the Kufatcha tribe suddenly fell upon the caravan and robbed it clean of everything. The merchants began to wail and to cry, uttering vain shouts and amentations.
Whether thou implorest or complainest
The robber will not return the gold again.
