C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Abdallah Nihauni

Poems from Oriental Languages: Ghazel and Song

SUMMER yet lingers, yet blushes and blesses,

Dazzling the dells with her sunbeamy tresses:

Here let us revel, defying excesses,

Sky-scalers—madcaps—with wine-wetted dresses!

Wine and the lute, amid roses and jesses,

Make our earth Eden, as Hafiz confesses;

Sultans have troubles, but nothing depresses

Sky-scalers—madcaps—with wine-wetted dresses!

Man cannot live upon berries and cresses;

Life’s is a banquet luxuriant in messes;

Deep let us drink while existence progresses,

Sky-scalers—madcaps—with wine-wetted dresses!

Naught will we know of past woes or successes;

Naught will we yield to but Pleasure’s caresses;

Naught but the spirit of riot possesses

Sky-scalers—madcaps—with wine-wetted dresses!

Slaves, whom the load of the present oppresses,

Fools, who would fathom the future’s recesses,

Kiss the goose, all of ye! Nothing distresses

Sky-scalers—madcaps—with wine-wetted dresses!

Who shall hereafter (all fame retrogresses)

Know of Nihaun and his friends but by guesses?

Deep let us drink, then, unfearing excesses,

Sky-scalers—madcaps—with wine-wetted dresses!

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