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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

(Turkish)
(Born in Constantinople. Ob. 1519. Buried at Mecca.)

Translation in Dublin University Magazine

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!