* * *

From when we climbed that pinnacle - love's minaret, my dove,
We both have known no other words but passioned words of love.
Best no one cross the threshold of this love, our dwelling-place,
Whose heart is cold as ice, unkindled by love's burning grace.

                    * * *

Don't ever wait from other any help when you're in need -
O Heart, they scarcely would proffer a dried and withered reed.
Stinginess makes each a beast, but thriftiness sustain at least,
So when your means are rather poor, watch with care expenditure.

                    * * *

A world there is for those in love with mines of precious stones,
But bards select a different world as setting for their thrones.
The bird who eats love's magic grain lives on another plane -
His nest beyond both worlds, ignoring riches, scorning fame.

                    * * *

Ah this then is my heart, and this - what true love means!
Like unto others, love but brings me torments unforeseen.
And my poor heart's the primal source of every sigh and bitter cry.
Ah this then is my heart, and this - what true love means!

                    * * *

Though you should be the lord of all, the people's crowned head,
One day you may be forced to cry from poverty instead.
For people let your heart be moved, grow close to them and dear;
And fear the day you'll need their aid - kind is payment made.

                    * * *

Should Egypt, China, Byzantine, belong to you alone -
It follows then, you know, you may call all the world your own.
Still… Make your life a merry one! For your predestined lot
Is thirty feet of winding-sheet, a nine-foot burial plot.

                    * * *

Museum of the Brave is Kharabat - the Hall of Fame.
Here none ignoble, mean or low, a place may ever claim.
And who but sets his foot within must pay respect esteem:
Here none through sophistry, deceit, a place may ever claim.

                    * * *

A man is joined to woman when they tie the marriage knot,
And this is right in Allah's eyes - his law forbide it not.
For me, the knot of marriage joins me to my Rubaiyat -
Is there ONE Faith that would comply to such a marriage tie?

                    * * *

No force can bind us: pull of moment, arrows flying home,
Nor any wild nostalgia that seized our hearts whilom.
Though my soft braids turned chains of steel and anchored in your heart,
Could any chain keep me at home if I should wish to roam?

                    * * *

As in a daze reposing by the field-canal, you dream,
O moon-faced Angel, slim as willow bending o'er a stream!
I come down the embankment bathed in sunshine straight to you -
That I come down for water, Lovely Creature, do not deem.

                    * * *

The pleasantest aroma is set drifting from your hair,
The morning breezes catch it up and breathe it everywhere.
Should some ascetic pilgrim see your charms as we embrace -
Could he again religious turn, asceticism bear?

                    * * *

O come, my love, and press your lips, you tender lips to mine:
Restore me once again to life, so from your love like wine
In blind intoxication I be clay within your hands,
And of the world's great weal or woe I'll never even know.

                    * * *

Thus said the Rose: Before I'd time to open my eyes,
Before I plucked Joy's berry from life's Earthly Paradise -
Myself was plucked, for pressing out the essence of my scent.
O may those hands be plucked off, too, from life in just reprise.

                    * * *

On grasses green a flower glows in tender ecstasy,
The nightingale pours out his trilling scales in rhapsody.
Both in enchantment dwell, forgetting what invoked the spell -
The role that life is brief, the bird his lonesome grief.

                    * * *

I came across a man upon the road but yesterday -
He wielded well the stick he held, and all along the way
In fury he was beating some poor woman, wifely slave.
All passers-by drank in the sight with no sign of dismay.

Translated by Gladys Evans