A servitor of learning,
In her bosom burning
A love deep-hidden
For lore both lawful and forbidden.
In night’s cloak enshrouded,
Her girdle brightly crowded
With stars etherial,
The crescent moon her crown imperial.
When night falls, plan to visit me.
For I believe night is the time that keeps secrets best.
I feel a love for you that if the light of heaven felt, the sun would not shine,
nor the moon rise, nor the stars begin their nightly journey.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 1,025th birthday.
I would split open my heart
with a knife, place you
within and seal my would,
that you might dwell there
and never inhabit another
until the resurrection and
judgment day — thus you
would stay in my heart
while I lived, and at my death
you too would die in the
entrails of my core, in
the shadow of my tomb.
Bless those wonderful nights,
And best of all,
Saturdays
If you had been there
You’d have seen us locked together
Under the chaperone’s sleepful eyes
Like the sun in the arms of the moon
Or a panting gazelle in the clasp of a lion.
We present this work in honor of the 955th anniversary of the poet’s death.
You came to me just before
the Christians rang their bells.
The half-moon was rising
looking like an old man’s eyebrow
or a delicate instep.
And although it was still night
when you came a rainbow
gleamed on the horizon,
showing as many colours
as a peacock’s tail.
Do not suppose it pleased the dell
That we should there together dwell
In happy union; truth to tell,
It showed us naught but petty spite.
The river did not clap, I fear,
For pleasure that we were so near,
The dove raised not his song of cheer
Save for his personal delight.
Think not such noble thoughts as you
Are worthy of; for if you do
You’ll very quickly find, and rue,
High thinking is not always wise.
I scarce suppose that yonder sky
Displayed its wealth of stars on high
For any reason, but to spy
On our romance with jealous eyes.
O, whom he misgives into singing bird is wrong
I didn’t think anyone carry this stingy feature for long
If all peoples’ ears would listen to its sound
Its sound will be not lessened or multiplied
If not I took care form thy meteor would burn me
I should eavesdrop to distant place probably
If Zaryab the musical was alive then he heard me
He would be dissolved at jealousy and died sadly
Don’t be grudger upon my hearing tiring to copy
It is a sound can play instead of soul in the body
Yet wine I don’t drink it now and formerly
I don’t come to thee unless I am satisfied totally
In honor of Dia de Andalucia, we present this work by one of the greatest poets of Andalusian Spain.
My tears bare my secrets in a river of apparent charm.
Rivers touring gardens and gardens touring rivers.
And among the gazelles is a joydoe who’s palmed my heart and unsleeped my eyes.
And when she unpins her hair you see the moon in a dark horizon, as though the dawn has lost a brother and worn his mourning dress.
In its double skirt enwrapped,
Fair as aught I ever clapped
Eyes on, as when eyelids close
Over slumberful repose.
Opened to the light of day
By a dagger, you might say
‘Tis the pupil of an eye
Whetted on its lid, to spy.
Inwardly it doth appear
Soft and rounded as an ear
And, to make my image true,
With its convolutions too.
Poets Corner 