Short Poems

O bear me, gods, to some enchanted isle
Where woman's tears can antidote her smile.

Why ask me, Gastrogogue, to dine
(Unless to praise your rascal wine)
Yet never ask some luckless sinner
Who needs, as I do not, a dinner?

This Uninhabited Island
Is near Cape Gardafui;
But it's hot--too hot--of Suez
For the likes of you and me
Ever to go in a P. & O.
To call on the Cake Parsee.

837

How well I knew Her not
Whom not to know has been
A Bounty in prospective, now
Next Door to mine the Pain.

897

How fortunate the Grave—
All Prizes to obtain—
Successful certain, if at last,
First Suitor not in vain.

I speak out of the deep of night
out of the deep of darkness
and out of the deep of night I speak.

If you come to my house, friend
bring me a lamp and a window I can look through
at the crowd in the happy alley.

ব্যর্থ হয়ে থাকে যদি প্রণয়ের এতো আয়োজন,
আগামী মিছিলে এসো
স্লোগানে স্লোগানে হবে কথোপকথন।

আকালের এই কালে সাধ হলে পথে ভালোবেসো,
ধ্রুপদী পিপাসা নিয়ে আসো যদি
লাল শাড়িটা তোমার পড়ে এসো।

Gham kaa hiiraa
dil meN rakho
kis ko dikhaate phirte ho
ye choroN kii duniyaa ha

Li Bai is already on the boat, preparing to depart,
I suddenly hear the sound of stamping and singing on the shore.
The water of Taohua pond reaches a thousand feet in depth,
But still it's not as deep as Wang Lun's feelings seeing me off.

A strange kind of madness has charmed my world.
My hopes aflame they now shiver and shake;
I have waited too long for my love to return -
That I have gone to sleep in a foolish way.