Ghazal 495

Drink wine and spread flowers
Of Fate what do you seek?
The rose said in early hours
Nightingale, what do you speak?

In the garden take your seat
Both Beloved & bearer greet
Breath in flowers and wine replete
Lip to lip and cheek to cheek

Let flowers strut their stuff
In the garden sing and laugh
And call the spruce's bluff
Let your stature rise and peak

The Rose bud's smiling face
Whose attention will it grace
Whom do you wish to embrace
O Rose bud, tender & meek?

In the marketplace today
Your buyers willingly pay
Be alert and stash away
Riches in your lucky streak

The candle flame of Goodness
The wind of Fate will caress
Commit and your art bless
With goodness shine and reek

Each curl of your hair
Is priceless and so rare
Seek joy and joy spare
And gently take a peek

In the garden of the King
Birds use their feather & beak
Nightingales gaily sing
Hafiz, the poetic geek

-Hafiz

Sonnet 59

If there be nothing new, but that which is
Hath been before, how are our brains beguiled,
Which, labouring for invention, bear amiss
The second burden of a former child!
O, that record could with a backward look,
Even of five hundred courses of the sun,
Show me your image in some antique book,
Since mind at first in character was done!
That I might see what the old world could say
To this composed wonder of your frame;
Whether we are mended, or whether better they,
Or whether revolution be the same.
O, sure I am, the wits of former days
To subjects worse have given admiring praise.

-William Shakespeare

Whilst it is prime

FRESH Spring, the herald of loves mighty king,
In whose cote-armour richly are displayd
All sorts of flowers, the which on earth do spring,
In goodly colours gloriously arrayd--
Goe to my love, where she is carelesse layd,
Yet in her winters bowre not well awake;
Tell her the joyous time wil not be staid,
Unlesse she doe him by the forelock take;
Bid her therefore her selfe soone ready make,
To wayt on Love amongst his lovely crew;
Where every one, that misseth then her make,
Shall be by him amearst with penance dew.
Make hast, therefore, sweet love, whilest it is prime;
For none can call againe the passed time.

-Edmund Spenser

Life

What is our life? A play of passion,
Our mirth the music of division,
Our mother's wombs the tiring-houses be,
Where we are dressed for this short comedy.
Heaven the judicious sharp spectator is,
That sits and marks still who doth act amiss.
Our graves that hide us from the setting sun
Are like drawn curtains when the play is done.
Thus march we, playing, to our latest rest,
Only we die in earnest, that's no jest.

-Sir Walter Raleigh

A dream within a dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow--
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand--
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep--while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

-Edgar Allen Poe

Infruset

Skarp som nordanstormen,
allas kamp mot alla
kyler genom märgen
och gör hjärtan kalla.

Det som lövomrankat
lyste varmt i solen
liknar snart en boning
på en ö vid polen.

Men ännu där inne
milda känslor bygga,
sitta där och sörja,
lutande och skygga.

Stundom de med möda
kylans fjättrar skaka,
vilja ut, men stappla
frysande tillbaka.

Kampens bistra frostvind
isar allt det varma,
alltför kallt är livet
för de veka arma.

Längre lider vintern,
kortare blir dagen,
mörkare blir mörkret,
blekare bli dragen.

Tills de milda känslor
alla ligga döde
i sitt hem vid polen
tigande och öde.

Om en fångstman kommer
vindvräkt över haven,
mötes han av ingen
i den tysta graven.

-Gustaf Fröding

En tanke

Med vinden blåser min
enda tanke bort.
Tomhet,
älskade tomhet.
Att vara full av storm
och sedan ingenting.

Vila, en källa till vila
med öppna ögon.
Drömmar,
närande drömmar.
Sedan vaken från stiltje
mot verklighetens ljus.

Må stormen alltid skapa
vindil runt min
surrande uppriktighet
och resa mitt fundament
så att det inte rasar samman
och att min vilande tanke
bara just blir

en tanke.

-Göran Hansson