Sleep, sleep, little one, close your eyes, sleep,
little one!
The night comes down, the hour has comes,
tomorrow it will be day.
Sleep, sleep, little one! On your closed eyes day
has fled
You are warm. You have drunk, sleep, sleep,
little one!
Sleep, tomorrow you will be big, you will be
strong.
Sleep, tomorrow you will take the
When I said nothing happened
I lied to you.
It happens, it happens every day,
on bridges, in open spaces.
Because I yielded to love
I walk, for some an object of shame,
for others a mirror. Whoever looks at me
is turned to stone,
frozen.
Thou wast that all to me, love,
For which my soul did pine—
A green isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a shrine,
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
And all the flowers were mine.
Ah, dream too bright to last!
Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise
My six children’s
thirty-six grandchildren’s
one thousand two hundred and ninety-six great-grandchildren
thank you
whose skin is more extensive
than all the sheets of paper in the world,
whose body is broader
than all the tombs in this world put together,
and whose smooth flesh has these moles,
marked like ancient script on birds’ eggs.
Thank you for the warm
O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O stay and hear! your true-love’s coming
That can sing both high and low;
Trip no further, pretty sweeting,
Journey’s end in lovers’ meeting–
Every wise man’s son doth know.
What is love? ’tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What’s to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty,–
Wrote a mother to her child:
Why do you say, I don’t understand,
I’ve brought you all way braving,
The scorching sun and blistering sand.
I have heard your heartbeats,
When none could see you in me,
I have felt your heartbeats,
Whenever you have felt lonely.
Salvation to all that will is nigh;
That All, which always is all everywhere,
Which cannot sin, and yet all sins must bear,
Which cannot die, yet cannot choose but die,
Lo, faithful virgin, yields Himself to lie
In prison, in thy womb; and though He there
Can take no sin, nor thou give, yet He will wear,
Taken from
Dear land of Jesse
Upon the city of excellence and enterprise
There I heard the wailing of your children
Tremble like echo of antelope inside inferno
Shrieking voices: painful, tearful and pathetic
Calamity makes your history hoodoo and mournful
Land of culture and natural endowments
Are seen consumed by the anger of a laughing fire
Is there a whim-inspired fool,
Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule,
Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool,
Let him draw near;
And owre this grassy heap sing dool,
And drap a tear.
Is there a bard of rustic song,
Who, noteless, steals the crowds among,
That weekly this area throng,
O, pass not by!
I begin with the name of the Compassionate,
and pray for the faithful one,
that I may set forth the story of that which happened long ago.
One day, Muhammad, the Friend, and Miqdad, at Mecca,
outside the town were going for a walk.
When they were walking, the rain came down upon them,
and they went to seek shelter and
He that cannot choose but love,
And strives against it still,
Never shall my fancy move,
For he loves ‘gainst his will;
Nor he which is all his own,
And can at pleasure choose,
When I am caught he can be gone,
And when he list refuse.
Nor he that loves none but fair,
For such by all are sought;<br
And now the bell, – the bell
She had so often heard by night and day
And listened to with solemn pleasure,
E’en as a living voice, –
Rung its remorseless toll for her,
So young, so beautiful, so good.
Decrepit age, and vigorous life,
And blooming youth, and helpless infancy,
Poured forth, – on crutches, in the pride of strength<br
None on earth is like her,
She that made me breathe.
None on earth is like her,
She that filled my stomach
None on earth is like her,
She that knew why I cried.
None on earth is like her,
She that protected me.
What colour is this?
Colour white
As white as snow
What colour is this?
Colour black
As black as charcoal
What colour is this?
Colour blue
As blue as the ocean
If I were a bird,
I would also use my coarse throat to sing:
This land stricken by storms,
These rivers forever torrential with our indignation,
This wind ceaselessly blowing in rages,
And that incomparably mild dawn coming from the forest…
—Then I die,
Decomposed into the land even with my feathers.
Da Yanhe, is my wet nurse.
Her name is the name of her village where she was born,
She is a childbride,
Da Yanhe, is my wet nurse.
I am a landlord’s son;
I am also Da Yanhe’s son
Who has brought me up by breastfeeding me.
Da Yanhe raises her family by raising me,
And I have been raised by
In rainy evenings,
It has happened,
A number of times;
Looking outside
The window for you,
I myself have become,
A window-pane:
Raindrops outside,
A fog inside,
A hapless mind
Strolling futile,
Your hand is heavy, Night, upon my brow.
I bear no heart mercuric like the clouds,
to dare.
Exacerbation from your subtle plough.
Woman as a clam, on the sea’s cresent.
I saw your jealous eye quench the sea’s
Flouorescence, dance on the pulse incessant
Of the waves. And I stood, drained
Submitting like the sands, blood and brine
Coursing
A poor man doesn’t know
how to eat with a rich man.
When he eats fish
he begins with the head.
If you invite a poor man
he comes without manners:
He comes licking his lips
upsetting the platter in eagerness.
The poor man has no reserves.
If invited, he comes in a hurry
with the blood of his lice
dirtying his
O God! who by Thy prophet’s hand
Didst smite the rocky brake,
Whence water came, at Thy command,
Thy people’s thirst to slake;
Strike, now, upon this granite wall,
Stern, obdurate, and high;
And let some drops of pity fall
For us who starve and die!
