{"collection":"Islam","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/isl/arp/arp079.htm","path":"isl/arp/arp079.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/isl/arp/arp079.htm","text":"Arabian Poetry, by W. A. Clouston, [1881]\n[THE scene lies in the desert, where the poet is supposed to he travelling along with a caravan. The time is midnight, and while he is kept awake by his sorrows, his fellow-travellers are slumbering around him.\nThe author opens the poem with a panegyric upon his own integrity, and the magnanimity he has shown under various misfortunes; these he is proceeding to recount, when he seems suddenly struck with the sight of a friend lying asleep at some distance from him. The poet adjures this friend to arise, and accompany him in an enterprise, the object of which was to visit a lady, whose habitation was in the neighbourhood. Fired with the idea of his mistress, he breaks forth into a description of the happiness of those who are admitted to her society, and resolves that nothing shall divert him from his purpose. His friend, however, appearing unmoved by his solicitations, he at length gives up his intention in despair, and after many bitter invectives against cowardice and sloth, returns to the subject of his misfortunes, and concludes the poem with an ardent exhortation to mistrust mankind, and in every contingence to rely solely upon our own prudence and fortitude.]\n\u00a0\u00a0For many a melancholy day\n Through desert vales I've wound my way;\n The faithful beast whose back I press\n In groans laments her lord's distress;\n In every quivering of my spear\n A sympathetic sigh I hear;\n The camel, bending with his load,\n And struggling through the thorny road,\n Midst the fatigues that bear him down,\n In Hassan's woes forgets his own;\u2014\n Yet cruel friends my wanderings chide,\n My sufferings slight, my toils deride.\n\u00a0\u00a0Once wealth, I own, engrossed each thought;\n There was a moment when I sought\n The glittering stores Ambition claims\n To feed the wants his fancy frames;\n But now \u2019tis past: the changing day\n Has snatched my high-built hopes away,\n And bade this wish my labours close,\u2014\n Give me not riches, but repose.\n\u00a0\u00a0What though, with magic influence, sleep\n O\u2019er every closing eyelid creep!\n Though, drunk with its oblivious wine,\n Our comrades on their bales recline,\n My Selim's trance I sure can break\u2014\n Selim, \u2019tis I, \u2019tis I who speak!\n Dangers on every side impend,\n And sleep\u2019st thou, careless of thy friend?\n Thou sleep\u2019st, while every star from high\n Beholds me with a wakeful eye;\n Thou changest, ere the changeful Night\n Hath streaked her fleeting robe with white.\n\u00a0\u00a0\u2019Tis Love that hurries me along,\n I'm deaf to Fear's repressive song;\n The rocks of Idham I'll ascend,\n Though adverse darts each path defend,\n And hostile sabres glitter there,\n To guard the tresses of the fair.\n\u00a0\u00a0Come, Selim, let us pierce the grove,\n While night befriends, to seek my love. p. 156\n The clouds of fragrance, as they rise,\n Shall mark the place where Abla lies.\n Around her tent my jealous foes,\n Like lions, spread their watchful rows;\n Amidst their bands her bower appears,\n Embosomed in a wood of spears\u2014\n A wood still nourished by the dews\n Which smiles and softest looks diffuse.\n\u00a0\u00a0Thrice happy youths! who midst yon shades\n Sweet converse hold with Idham's maids!\n What bliss to view them gild the hours,\n And brighten Wit and Fancy's powers,\n While every foible they disclose\n New transport gives, new graces shows!\n \u2019Tis theirs to raise with conscious art\n The flames of love in every heart;\n \u2019Tis yours to raise with festive glee\n The flames of hospitality:\n Smit by their glances lovers lie,\n And helpless sink, and hopeless die;\n While, slain by you, the stately steed\n To crown the feast is doomed to bleed\u2014\n To crown the feast, where copious flows\n The sparkling juice that soothes your woes,\n That lulls each care and heals each wound,\n As the enlivening bowl goes round.\n\u00a0\u00a0Amidst those vales my eager feet\n Shall trace my Abla's dear retreat; p. 157\n A gale of health may hover there,\n To breathe some solace to my care.\n I fear not Love\u2014I bless the dart\n Sent in a glance to pierce the heart:\n With willing breast the sword I hail\n That wounds me through a half-closed veil;\n Though lions, howling round the shade,\n My footsteps haunt, my walks invade,\n No fears shall drive me from the grove,\n If Abla listen to my love.\n\u00a0\u00a0Ah, Selim! shall the spells of ease\n Thy friendship chain, thine ardour freeze?\n Wilt thou, enchanted thus, decline\n Each generous thought, each bold design?\n Then far from men some cell prepare,\n Or build a mansion in the air;\n But yield to us ambition's tide\n Who fearless on its waves can ride;\u2014\n Enough for thee, if thou receive\n The scattered spray the billows leave.\n\u00a0\u00a0Contempt and want the wretch await\n Who slumbers in an abject state\u2014\n Midst rushing crowds, by toil and pain,\n The meed of Honour we must gain;\n At Honour's call, the camel hastes\n Through trackless wilds and dreary wastes,\n Till in the glorious race she find\n The fleetest coursers left behind: p. 158\n By toils like these alone, he cries,\n Th\u2019 adventurous youths to greatness rise:\n If bloated indolence were fame,\n And pompous ease our noblest aim,\n The orb that regulates the day\n Would ne\u2019er from Aries\u2019 mansion stray.\n\u00a0\u00a0I've bent at Fortune's shrine too long;\n Too oft she heard my suppliant tongue;\n Too oft has mocked my idle prayers,\n While fools and knaves engrossed her cares;\n Awake for them, asleep to me,\n Heedless of worth she scorned each plea.\n Ah! had her eyes, more just, surveyed\n The different claims which each displayed,\n Those eyes, from partial fondness free,\n Had slept to them, and waked for me.\n\u00a0\u00a0But midst my sorrows and my toils,\n Hope ever soothed my breast with smiles;\n Her hand removed each gathering ill,\n And oped life's closing prospects still.\n Yet spite of all her friendly art,\n The specious scene ne\u2019er gained my heart:\n I loved it not, although the day,\n Met my approach, and cheered my way;\n I loath it, now the hours retreat,\n And fly me with reverted feet.\n\u00a0\u00a0My soul, from every tarnish free,\n May boldly vaunt her purity; p. 159\n But ah, how keen, however bright\n The sabre glitter to the sight,\n Its splendour's lost, its polish vain,\n Till some bold hand the steel sustain.\n\u00a0\u00a0Why have my days been stretched by Fate\n To see the vile and vicious great,\n While I, who led the race so long,\n Am last and meanest of the throng?\n Ah, why has Death so long delayed\n To wrap me in his friendly shade?\u2014\n Left me to wander thus alone,\n When all my heart held dear is gone!\n\u00a0\u00a0But let me check these fretful sighs\u2014\n Well may the base above me rise,\n When yonder planets, as they run,\n Mount in the sky above the sun.\n Resigned I bow to Fate's decree,\n Nor hope his laws will change for me:\n Each shifting scene, each varying hour,\n But proves the ruthless tyrant's power.\n\u00a0\u00a0But though with ills unnumbered cursed,\n We owe to faithless man the worst;\n For man can smile with specious art,\n And plant a dagger in the heart.\n He only's fitted for the strife\n Which fills the boist\u2019rous paths of life,\n Who, as he treads the crowded scenes,\n Upon no kindred bosom leans. p. 160\n Too long my foolish heart had deemed\n Mankind as virtuous as they seemed;\n The spell is broke, their faults are bare,\n And now I see them as they are:\n Truth from each tainted breast has flown,\n And Falsehood marks them all her own.\n Incredulous I listen now\n To every tongue and every vow,\n For still there yawns a gulf between\n Those honeyed words and what they mean.\n With honest pride elate I see\n The sons of Falsehood shrink from me,\n As from the right line's even way\n The biassed curves deflecting stray.\u2014\n But what avails it to complain?\n With souls like theirs reproof is vain;\n If honour e\u2019er such bosoms share,\n The sabre's point must fix it there.\n\u00a0\u00a0But why exhaust life's vapid bowl,\n And suck the dregs with sorrow foul,\n When long ere this my youth has drained\n Whatever zest the cup contained?\n Why should we mount upon the wave\n And ocean's yawning horrors brave,\n When we may swallow from the flask\n Whate\u2019er the wants of mortals ask?\n\u00a0\u00a0Contentment's realms no fears invade,\n No cares annoy, no sorrows shade; p. 161\n There, placed secure, in peace we rest,\n Nor aught demand to make us blest.\n While Pleasure's gay fantastic bower,\n The splendid pageant of an hour,\n Like yonder meteor in the skies,\n Flits with a breath, no more to rise.\n\u00a0\u00a0As through life's various walks we're led,\n May Prudence hover o\u2019er our head!\n May she our words, our actions guide,\n Our faults correct, our secrets hide!\n May she, where\u2019er our footsteps stray,\n Direct our paths and clear the way!\n Till, every scene of tumult past,\n She bring us to repose at last\u2014\n Teach us to love that peaceful shore,\n And roam through Folly's wilds no more!","title":"Arabian Poetry: Shorter Pieces of Arabian Poetry: Lamiat Alajem, by Mauid Eddin Alhassan Abu Ismael Altograi","type":"page"}