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 Goawaī._
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 Matabîlîwaijo._
Wind! a word with thee! thou goest where my Well-Preservéd 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 Tûtsi I am fain to pluck a rose.
Tell her I'm a wanton Sufí (what a Sufí 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 Johnís, Lords of War,
Talking 'jungle in the gun-room,' underneath the deodar.
Hoo Tawâ! I go to join them; he that cometh late is curst,
For the Lords of War (by Akbar) have a most amazing thirst!
3.
MARSYAS IN HADES.
(AFTER SIR L. M.)
Next I saw
A pensive gentleman of middle age,
That leaned against a Druid oak, his pipe
Pendent beneath his chin--a double one--
(Meaning the pipe); reluctant was his breath,
For he had mingled in the Morris dance
And rested blown; but damsels in their teens,
All decorous and decorously clad,
Their very ankles hardly visible,
Recalled his motions; while, for chaperon,
Good Mrs. Grundy up against the wall
Beamed approbation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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