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

Lamii (Mohammed Ben Osman Ben Ali Nakkash)

(Turkish—Sixteenth Century)

Translation in Dublin University Magazine

WHAT is Love? I asked a lover;

Liken it, he answered, weeping,

To a flood unchained and sweeping

Over shell-strown grottoes, over

Beds of roses, lilies, tulips,

O’er all flowers that most enrich the

Garden, in one headlong torrent,

Till they show a wreck from which the

Eye and mind recoil abhorrent.

Hearts may woo hearts, lips may woo lips,

And gay days be spent in gladness,

Dancing, feasting, lilting, luting,

But the end of all is Sadness,

Desolation, Devastation,

Spoliation, and Uprooting!