For The Albums Of Crowned Heads Only
By Owen Seaman
(AFTER SIR E. A.)
1. From the third Sa'dine Box of the eighth Gazelle of Ghazal.
Ya Ya! Best-Beloved! I look to thy dimples and drink;
Tiddlihi! to thy cheek-pits and chin-pit, my Tulip, my Pink!
See my heart rises up like a bubble, and bursts in my throat,
And the dimples that draw it are Three, like the Men in a Boat.
Thrice Three are the Muses, and I that begat her should guess
That the Tenth is the TE-LE-EPHE-MERA, Pride of the PRESS!
And the Graces were triplets till lately the fruitful Diti
Propagated a Fourth, and the infant was W. G.
From my post of Propinquity prone on my languorous knees
My tears slither down like the Gum of Arabia's trees.
"Am I drunk?" Heart-Entangler! By Hafiz, the Blender of Squish!
'Tis the camel that sits on the prayer-mat is drunk as a fish.
As I hope for the future Uprising, deny it who can,
Two years I have worn the Blue Ribbon, come next Ramadan!
Chest-Preserver! thou knowest thine eyes, they alone, are my drink,
Blue-black as the sloes of the Garden or Stephens his Ink.
On thy sugar-sweet liplets, my Cypress! I browse like a bee,
And am aching, as after a surfeit of Melon, for thee!
Low laid at thy feet, little feet, in the dust like a worm,
Round the train of thy skirt, O my Peacock, I fitfully squirm.
By Allah! I swoon, I rotate, I am sickly of hue!
And the Infidel swore that Jam-Jam was a Temperance brew!
Heart-Punisher! Surely I think it was jalapped with gin!
Aha! Paradise! I am passing! So be it! Amin!
2. From a little thing by the Princess Onono Goawai-.
The bulbul hummeth like a book
Upon the pooh-pooh tree,
And now and then he takes a look
At you and me,
At me and you.
Kuchi!
Kuchoo!
3. From the Sanskrit of Matabiliwaijo.
Wind! a word with thee! thou goest where my Well-Preserved lies
On her bed of bonny briers keeping off the wicked flies.
Thou shalt know her by th' aroma of her bosom, which is musk,
And her ivories that glisten like an elephantine tusk.
Seek her coral-guarded tympanum and whisper "Poppinjai!"
And (referring to her lover) kindly add "A-lal-lal-lai!"
Breeze! thou knowest my condition; state it broadly, if you please,
In a smattering of Indo-Turco-Perso-Japanese.
Say my youth is flitting freely, and before the season goes
From the garden of my Ttsi I am fain to pluck a rose.
Tell her I'm a wanton Suf (what a Suf really is
She may know, perhaps, I count it one of Allah's mysteries).
Fly, O blessed Breeze, and hither bring me back the net result;
Fly as flies the rude mosquito from Abdullah's catapult.
Fly as flies the rusty rickshaw of the Kurumayasan,
When he scents a Hippopotam down the groves of Gulistan.
Fly and cull, O cull, a section of my Pipkin's purple tress;
Thou shalt find me drinking deeply with the Lords that rule the
Mess;
Quaffing mead and mighty sodas with the Johns, Lords of War,
Talking 'jungle in the gun-room,' underneath the deodar.
Hoo Taw! I go to join them; he that cometh late is curst,
For the Lords of War (by Akbar) have a most amazing thirst!