No More Learning

A soft sound strikes soft echoes.

A Turkish trader from Cos's waters,

Up from the isles of Greece on Tartar oars?

Or cormorants plunging one by one, cutting

The flood, pearls flying from their wings?

Or a Djinn above in a thin voice piping,

Hurling high towers in the sea as he spins?

Who stirs the waves by the women's seraglio?

Not the cormorant, cradled there on the sea,

Not stones from the walls, or the rhythmic beat

Of a trader's oars thrashing the waves below.

But heaving sacks, from which sobs break free.

See them, sounding the flood that floats them on,

Moving their sides like human forms. . .

The moon was serene and played on the sea.

Since I have touched my lips. . .

Since I have touched my lips to your brimming cup,

Since I have bowed my pale brow in your hands,

Since I have sometime breathed the sweet breath

Of your soul, a perfume buried in shadow lands;

Since it was granted to me to hear you utter

Words in which the mysterious heart sighs,

Since I have seen smiles, since I have seen tears

Your mouth on my mouth, your eyes on my eyes;

Since I have seen over my enraptured head

A light from your star shine, ah, ever veiled!
Since I have seen falling to my life's flood

The leaf of a rose snatched from out your days,

Now at last I can say to the fleeting years:

- Pass by! Pass by, forever! No more age!

Away with you and all your withered flowers,

I have a flower in my soul no one can take!

Your wings, brushing it, spill never a drop

From the glass I fill, from which my thirst I quench.

My soul possesses more fire than you have ashes!

My heart more love than your forgetfulness!

My Two Daughters

In pleasant evening's fresh-clear darkness,

One seems a swan, the other a dove,

Both joyous, both lovely, O sweetness!

See, the elder and younger move

At the garden's edge, and beside them

White carnations with long frail stems,

Stirred by the wind, in a marble urn,

Lean, watching them, live and motionless,

And, trembling with shade there, seem to be

Butterflies caught in flight, frozen ecstasy.

Her feet were bare. . .

Her feet were bare she'd undone her hair,

Sitting, fair, by the bowing reeds;

I who went by, thought a fairy was there,

And I said: Will you walk in the meads?

She looked at me with a haughty look

That beauty retains when we conquer,

And I said: Will you? It's the month of love,

Will a walk in the woods be your answer?

She dried her feet on the riverside grass;

She looked at me once again,

And the playful beauty then took thought.