Eyes of Youth

In the space of a broken castle I found you on
a day
When the call of the new-come cuckoo went
with me all the way.
You stood by the loosened stones that were
rough and black with age:
The fawn beloved of the hunter in the panther's
broken cage!

And we went down together by paths your
childhood knew—
Remote you went beside me, like the spirit of
the dew;
Hard were the hedge-rows still: sloe-bloom
was their scanty dower—
You slipped it within your bosom, the bloom
that scarce is flower.

And now you stay at my bosom with you
beauty young and rare,
Though your light limbs are as limber as the
foal's that follows the mare;
But always I will see you on paths your childhood
knew,
When remote you went beside me like the
spirit of the dew.

Christ the Comrade

Christ, by thine own darkened hour
Live within my heart and brain!
Let my hands not slip the rein.

Ah, how long ago it is
Since a comrade rode with me!
Now a moment let me see

Thyself, lonely in the dark,
Perfect, without wound or mark.

Arab Songs (I)

Saadi the Poet stood up and he put forth his
living words.
His songs were the hurtling of spears and
his figures the flashing of swords.
With hearts dilated our tribe saw the creature
of Saadi's mind;
It was like to the horse of a king, a creature
of fire and of wind.

Umimah my loved one was by me: without
love did these eyes see my fawn,
And if fire there were in her being, for me
its splendour had gone;
When the sun storms up on the tent, he makes
waste the fire of the grass—
It was thus with my loved one's beauty: the
splendour of song made it pass.

The desert, the march, and the onset—these
and these only avail,
Hands hard with the handling of spear-shafts,
brows white with the press of the mail!
And as for the kisses of women—these are
honey, the poet sings;
But the honey of kisses, beloved, it is lime
for the spirit's wings.

Arab Songs (II)

The poet reproaches those who have affronted him.