dots-menu
×

Home  »  Poems of Places An Anthology in 31 Volumes  »  The Wail and Warning of the Three Khalendeers

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Greece and Turkey in Europe: Vol. XIX. 1876–79.

Turkey in Europe, and the Principalities: Bosphorus (Straits of Constantinople)

The Wail and Warning of the Three Khalendeers

By From the Ottoman

Translated by J. C. Mangan

LA’ laha, il Allah!

Here we meet, we three, at length,

Amrah, Osman, Perizad:

Shorn of all our grace and strength,

Poor, and old, and very sad!

We have lived, but live no more;

Life has lost its gloss for us,

Since the days we spent of yore

Boating down the Bosphorus!

La’ laha, il Allah!

The Bosphorus, the Bosphorus!

Old Time brought home no loss for us.

We felt full of health and heart

Upon the foamy Bosphorus!

La’ laha, il Allah!

Days indeed! A shepherd’s tent

Served us then for house and fold;

All to whom we gave or lent

Paid us back a thousand-fold.

Troublous years, by myriads wailed,

Rarely had a cross for us,

Never when we gayly sailed,

Singing down the Bosphorus.

La’ laha, il Allah!

The Bosphorus, the Bosphorus!

There never came a cross for us,

While we daily, gayly sailed

Adown the meadowy Bosphorus.

La’ laha, il Allah!

Blithe as birds we flew along,

Laughed and quaffed and stared about;

Wine and roses, mirth and song,

Were what most we cared about.

Fame we left for quacks to seek,

Gold was dust and dross for us,

While we lived from week to week,

Boating down the Bosphorus.

La’ laha, il Allah!

The Bosphorus, the Bosphorus!

And gold was dust and dross for us,

While we lived from week to week,

A-boating down the Bosphorus.

La’ laha, il Allah!

Friends we were, and would have shared

Purses, had we twenty full.

If we spent, or if we spared,

Still our funds were plentiful.

Save the hours we past apart

Time brought home no loss for us;

We felt full of hope and heart

While we clove the Bosphorus.

La’ laha, il Allah!

The Bosphorus, the Bosphorus!

For life has lost its gloss for us,

Since the days we spent of yore

Upon the pleasant Bosphorus!

La’ laha, il Allah!

Ah! for youth’s delirious hours,

Man pays well in after days.

When quenched hopes and palsied powers

Mock his love-and-laughter days.

Thorns and thistles on our path

Took the place of moss for us,

Till false fortune’s tempest wrath

Drove us from the Bosphorus.

La’ laha, il Allah!

The Bosphorus, the Bosphorus!

When thorns took place of moss for us,

Gone was all! Our hearts were graves

Deep, deeper than the Bosphorus!

La’ laha, il Allah!

Gone is all! In one abyss

Lie health, youth, and merriment!

All we ’ve learned amounts to this,—

Life ’s a sad experiment.

What it is we trebly feel

Pondering what it was for us,

When our shallop’s bounding keel

Clove the joyous Bosphorus.

La’ laha, il Allah!

The Bosphorus, the Bosphorus!

We wail for what life was for us,

When our shallop’s bounding keel

Clove the joyous Bosphorus!

The Warning

La’ laha, il Allah!

Pleasure tempts, yet man has none

Save himself to accuse, if her

Temptings prove, when all is done,

Lures hung out by Lucifer.

Guard your fire in youth, O friends

Manhood’s is but phosphorus,

And bad luck attends and ends

Boatings down the Bosphorus!

La’ laha, il Allah!

The Bosphorus, the Bosphorus!

Youth’s fire soon wanes to phosphorus,

And slight luck or grace attends

Your boaters down the Bosphorus!