The Good Book (31 page)

O thoughts come back to idleness and peace.

In quietude enjoy the meadows of your home,

There work your will and follow your desires

Till sorrow is forgotten;

Let carefree hours bring you many pleasant days

And length of life.

O thoughts come back to joys beyond all telling!

Where at harvest-time the corn stacks high,

Where pies are cooked of millet and bearded maize,

And guests enjoy steaming bowls of soup

And savour the pungency of peppered herbs,

To which the artful cook adds slices of sweet fowl,

Pigeon and yellow heron and black crane.

Come back, O thoughts;

Taste again the feasts of your youth, succulent and rich,

With salad of minced radishes in brine,

With hot spice of southernwood.

O thoughts come back to taste the meats you love!

The four strong liquors are warming at the fire

To be smooth on the drinker’s throat.

How fragrant rise their fumes, how cool their taste!

Unfermented spirit blended with white yeast

Distils the essence of cheer and forgetfulness.

O thoughts come back and let your yearnings cease!

Tunes from small-throated flutes

Gladden the feasters, and old songs are sung:

The ballad-singer’s voice rises alone, and recalls memories.

O thoughts come back to the hollow mulberry tree! 

There eight and eight the dancers sway,

Weaving their steps to the poet’s voice.

Musicians tap their bells and beat their chimes

Keeping harp and flute to their measure.

Then rival singers compete in melody, till not a tune

Is left unsung that human voice could sing.

O thoughts come back and listen to their song!

Then women enter whose red lips and dazzling teeth

Entrance the eye;

Trained in every art they discourse of poetry

And strum the lute,

And to their knowledge of history and letters

Add soft hands and delicate wrists, graceful as the spring.

O thoughts come back and let them ease your woe!

Then enter other girls with laughing lips

And sidelong glances under moth-eye brows;

Whose cheeks are fresh and red;

Girls soft of heart and long of limb,

Whose beauty by intelligence is matched.

Rose-glowing cheeks and ears with curving rim,

High-arching eyebrows, as with compass drawn,

Soft hearts and loving gestures – all are there;

Small waists and necks as slender as the clasp of brooches.

O thoughts come back to those whose tenderness

Drives anger and sadness away!

Last enter those whose every action is contrived to please;

Black-painted eyebrows and white-powdered cheeks.

They diffuse sweet scents; their long sleeves brush

The faces of feasters whom they pass,

They pluck the coats of those who will not stay.

O thoughts come back to pleasures of the night!

And at the first ray of dawn already is hung

The shooting target, where bow in hand

And arrows under arm, archers salute each other,

Each willing to yield his rights of precedence

Who shall go first;

Here is courtesy, and here leisure;

Here the exercise of skill in the fresh morning light.

O thoughts come back to these pleasures

And the quiet meadows of home!

A summerhouse with spacious rooms

And a high hall with beams stained red;

A little closet in the southern wing

Reached by a private stair.

And round the house a covered way runs

Where horses are trained.

And sometimes riding, sometimes afoot

You shall explore, O thoughts, the park in spring;

Your jewelled axles gleaming in the sun

And yoke inlaid with gold;

Or amid orchids and sandalwood trees

You shall stroll through shaded woods.

O thoughts come back and live for these delights!

Peacocks shall fill your gardens; you shall rear

The roc and phoenix, and red jungle-fowl,

Whose cry at dawn assembles river storks

To join the play of cranes and ibises;

Where the wild swan all day

Pursues the glint of kingfishers

Flashing amongst the reeds.

O thoughts come back to watch the birds in flight!

He who has found such delights

Shall feel his cheeks glow

And the blood dancing through his limbs.

Stay with me, O thoughts, and share

The span of days that happiness will bring;

See sons and grandsons succeed in their crafts, enriched;

O thoughts come back and bring prosperity

To house and stock!

The roads that lead abroad teem thick as clouds

With travellers going a thousand miles away.

Are they wise in council; by their aid will rulers relieve

The discontents of humble men

And help the lonely poor?

Will there be deeds to repair

The wrongs endured by every tribe of men?

O thoughts come back and leave the unjust world,

Come back to where the good are praised;

Come back to where the wise are sought!

O thoughts, come back, come back! Go not

East or south, north or west;

Come back to the quiet meadows of home,

To the pavilions of repose where there, at last, is rest.

54

That I could shrink the surface of the world,

So that suddenly I might find you standing at my side!

In old days those who went to fight

Had one year’s leave in every three.

But in this war the soldiers never return;

They fight on till they die:

That is their discharge.

I thought of you, so unsoldierlike,

Trying to learn to march and drill,

To load a gun, to shoot and kill.

That a young man such as you,

Poet, scholar, lover,

Would ever come home again

Seemed as likely as that the sky should fall.

Since I heard the news that you were coming back,

Twice I have visited the high hall of your home.

I found your brother mending your horse’s stall;

I found your mother sewing new clothes for you.

I am half afraid; perhaps it is not true;

Yet I never weary of watching the road for you.

Each day I go to the city gate

With a flask of wine, lest you should come thirsty.

Oh that I could shrink the surface of the world,

So that suddenly I might find you standing at my side!

55

Wake up, cup-bearer, arise! and bring

My thirsty lips the bowl they praise.

I thought love would be easy,

But I have stumbled, and fallen.

I begged the breeze to blow to my face

The fragrance of musk in her hair,

The fragrance that sleeps in the night of her hair –

Yet nothing comes but weeping.

Hear the tavern-keeper’s counsel: ‘With red wine

Dye the carpet on which you lie.’

He knows; he knows the way.

Where shall I rest, when all the still night long

Beyond the gateway, oh heart of my heart,

I hear the bells of lamentation and the cry,

‘Bind up your burden, and depart!’

The tide runs high, night is clouded with fears,

In my ears eddying whirlpools clash and roar;

How shall my drowning voice strike their ears

Whose lighter vessels have gained the shore?

I sought something to be my own; the unsparing years

Have brought me only a dishonoured name.

What cloak shall cover my misery

When each jesting mouth repeats my shame!

Oh hold fast what the wise have said:

‘If at last you gain your life’s desire,

Cast the world aside, leave it for dead;

There is no ease otherwise for the heart

Than to bind up your burden, and depart!’

56

The garden birds sang to the rose

Newly opened in the clear dawn:

‘Lower your head! Within this garden

Many as fair as you have bloomed and died!’

Laughing she replied,

‘That I am born to fade does not grieve me.

But you do wrong to vex with bitter words

The moment when I am most myself.’

The tavern step shall be your hostelry,

Love’s riches come only to those

Who supplicate on its dusty threshold

The ruby-red wine that flows

From life’s jewelled goblet; otherwise

A thousand tears will thread your eyelashes

For such temerity as denies

That love in the fallen rose’s petal lies.

Last night when the garden slept

In the silver arms of the moon,

A breeze stole through its alleys

And lifted the hyacinth’s purple head.

‘Where is the cup, the mirror of the world?

Where is love, like the wakened rose

Blossoming in the garden where its kind

Bloomed and died, so many, before?’

The breeze knew not; but sighed, ‘Alas!

That happiness should sleep so long.’

Love’s secret does not dwell on the lips of men;

Its place is secret and unrevealed. O friend!

Come where there is idle laughter, where wine

Graces the feast: patience and wisdom are launched

On a sea of tears, and soon we must sleep without end.

57

Light of my eyes and harvest of my heart,

Mine at least in changeless memory!

When you found it easy to leave, what you left

Was the harder journey for us to take.

Oh you who stand by, help me lift my load,

Let pity be the comrade of my road!

If only life could re-enter at the deserted door,

And the cold body breathe again and burn;

Come! touch my eyes; I am blind to all

But your face; open their gates and let me see

By the love we bore each other, and its grace,

Once more your face.

58

You ask why I live in the green mountain;

I smile but stay silent, for my heart is free.

As the leaves of the peach tree float downstream

To distant places unknown,

As the hummingbird flashes away to the woods,

And smoke curls up to the clouds,

I go likewise, and am found no more:

Neither in the villages of the plain

Nor the habitations of men;

But live high with the winds

Where all five directions are visible at once,

Alone, without a care.

59

There are no coins in my pocket, and a flagon of wine

Costs as much as an estate to one who is poor.

A plate of food costs even more; but what does it matter?