Venice masks

Friday 14 September 2018

On Autumn - Lâmiî Çelebi

O sad heart, come, distraction's hour is now high,
The air's cool, 'midst the elds to sit the time nigh.
The Sun hath to the Balance, Joseph-like, past,
The year's Zuleykha hath her gold hoard wide cast.
By winds bronzed, like the Sun, the quince's face glows;
Its Pleiads-clusters, hanging forth, the vine shows.
In saffron flow'rets have the meads themselves dight;
The trees, all scorched, to gold have turned, and shine bright.
The gilded leaves in showers falling to earth gleam;
With goldfish filled doth glisten brightly each stream.
Ablaze each tree, and blent are all in one glare,
And therefore charged with glistening fire the still air.
Amidst the yellow foliage perched the black crows
As tulip, saffron-hued, that spotted cup shows.
A yellow-plumaged bird now every tree stands,
Which shakes itself and feathers sheds on all hands.
Each vine-leaf paints its face, bride-like, with gold ink;
The brook doth silver anklets round the vine link.
The plane-tree hath its hands, with henna, red-dyed,
And stands there of the parterre's court the fair bride.
The erst green tree now like the starry sky shows,
And hurling meteors at the fiend, Earth, stones throws.

Lâmiî Çelebi [aka Lami'i, real name: Mahmud bin Osman bin Ali en-Nakkaş bin İlyas Lamii] (1472 - 1532) Turkey
Translator not given
Source: The sacred books and early literature of the East; with an historical survey and descriptions
by Charles Francis Horne, Parke, 1917

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