Georgia
Part of a Ghazal
Lonely rose out-splendouring legions of roses,
How could the nightingales behold you and not sing?
By Rustwell of Georgia (from the Tariel, twelfth century).
Hindustan
Fard
Love brings the tiny sweat into your hair
Like stars marching in the dead of night.
From the Hindustani of Mir Taqui (eighteenth century).
Incurable
I desire the door-sill of my beloved
More than a king’s house;
I desire the shadow of the wall where her beauty hides
More than the Delhi palaces.
Why did you wait till spring;
Were not my hands already full of red-thorned roses?
My heart is yours,
So that I know not which heart I hear sighing:
Yaquin, Yaquin, Yaquin, foolish Yaquin.
From the Hindustani of Yaquin (eighteenth century).