Short Poems

Moonlight in winter, and I draw
My neck within my comforter.

A rainy moon, and everywhere
Alike a faint irradiation.

P erkins (our wonder) living, though long dead,
In this white paper, as a winding-sheet,
And in this velome lies enveloped:
Yet still he lives, guiding the erring feet,
Speaking now to our eyes, though buried.
If once so well, much better now he teacheth.
Who will not heare, when a live-dead man preacheth?

Cold, too, is the interval before the moxa
dots dry, — spring breeze.

Behold the leaf that sinks and clings
Below the water to a rock!

Though now to heav'n thy travels are confin'd,
Thy wealth, friends, life, and countrey, all are lost;
Yet in this picture we thee living finde;
And thou with lesser travel, lesser cost,
Hast found new life, friends, wealth, and better coast:
So by thy death thou liv'st, by losse thou gain'st,
And in thy absence present still remain'st.

In spite of all my misfortunes, I am still grateful to Allah for two things:
The first is that I am an Afghan; the second that I am Khushal Khan, the Khatak.

We have a saying in China
That a man will wash his hands cleaner for visitors
Than he will for the family.
Even so,
He who is full of sententious wisdom in public
May be dark and doubtful within.

In a sharp gale from the wide sky apes are whimpering,
Birds are flying homeward over the clear lake and white sand,
Leaves are dropping down like the spray of a waterfall,
While I watch the long river always rolling on.
I have come three thousand miles away. Sad now with autumn
And with my hundred years of woe, I climb this height alone.
Ill fortune has laid a bitter frost on my temples,
Heart-ache and weariness are a thick dust in my wine.

It is the mark of extreme youth
To believe that telling the Whole Truth
Is always useful.
Truth is not a diet
But a condiment.