Distich

Lions tremble at my claws;
And I at a gazelle with eyes.

From the Turkish of Sultan Selim I.

Edward Powys Mathers

Edward Powys Mathers was an English translator and poet, best known for translating the French Orientalist J.C. Mardrus's translation of 'The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night' in 1923. In addition to translations, Powys Mathers was an influential figure in the realm of cryptic crosswords, devising some of the most challenging puzzles for 'The Observer'. His translations have been lauded for their literary beauty and for introducing English-speaking audiences to classic Persian, Arabic, and Turkish poetry.

Edward Powys Mathers

Alone One Night

Edward Powys Mathers, Simple Poetry

The Bad Road

Edward Powys Mathers, Simple Poetry

An Orange Sleeve

Edward Powys Mathers, Simple Poetry

Too Short A Night

Edward Powys Mathers, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Distich

Your face upon a drop of purple wine
Shows like my soul poised on a bead of blood.

From the Turkic of Hussein Baikrani.

Edward Powys Mathers

Perturbation At Dawn

Day comes....

And when she sees the withering of the violet garden
And the saffron garden flowering,
The stars escaping on their black horse
And dawn on her white horse arriving,
She is afraid.

Against the sighing of her frightened breasts
She puts her hand;
I see what I have never seen,
Five perfect lines on a crystal leaf
Written with coral pens.

From the Arabic of Ebn Maatuk (seventeenth century).

Edward Powys Mathers

The Lion.

^[1]

Some time ago, a sultan Leopard,
By means of many a rich escheat,
Had many an ox in meadow sweet,
And many a stag in forest, fleet,
And (what a savage sort of shepherd!)
Full many a sheep upon the plains,
That lay within his wide domains.
Not far away, one morn,
There was a lion born.
Exchanged high compliments of state,
As is the custom with the great,
The sultan call'd his vizier Fox,
Who had a deeper knowledge-box,
And said to him, 'This lion's whelp you dread;
What can he do, his father being dead?
Our pity rather let him share,
An orphan so beset with care.
The luckiest lion ever known,
If, letting conquest quite alone,
He should have power to keep his own.'
Sir Renard said,
And shook his head,
'Such...

Jean de La Fontaine

Things Seen In A Battle

Clear diamond heart,
I have been hunting death
Among the swords.

But death abhors my shadow,
And I come back
Wounded with memories.

Your eyes,
For steel is amorous of steel
And there are bright blue sparks.

Your lips,
I see great bloody roses
Cut in white dead breasts.

Your bed,
For I see wrestling bodies
Under the evening star.

From the Turkic.

Edward Powys Mathers

To A Caged Lion

Poor conquered monarch! though that haughty glance
Still speaks thy courage unsubdued by time,
And in the grandeur of thy sullen tread
Lives the proud spirit of thy burning clime; -
Fettered by things that shudder at thy roar,
Torn from thy pathless wilds to pace this narrow floor!

Thou wast the victor, and all nature shrunk
Before the thunders of thine awful wrath;
The steel-armed hunter viewed thee from afar,
Fearless and trackless in thy lonely path!
The famished tiger closed his flaming eye,
And crouched and panted as thy step went by!

Thou art the vanquished, and insulting man
Bars thy broad bosom as a sparrow's wing;
His nerveless arms thine iron sinews bind,
And lead in chains the desert's fallen king;
Are these the beings that have dared to...

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Ben Allah Achmet; Or, The Fatal Tum

I once did know a Turkish man
Whom I upon a two-pair-back met,
His name it was Effendi Khan
Backsheesh Pasha Ben Allah Achmet.

A Doctor Brown I also knew
I've often eaten of his bounty
The Turk and he they lived at Hooe,
In Sussex, that delightful county.

I knew a nice young lady there,
Her name was Isabella Sherson,
And though she wore another's hair,
She was an interesting person.

The Turk adored the maid of Hooe
(Although his harem would have shocked her);
But Brown adored that maiden, too:
He was a most seductive doctor.

They'd follow her where'er she'd go
A course of action most improper;
She neither knew by sight, and so
For neither of them cared a copper.

Brown did not know that Turkish male,
He mig...

William Schwenck Gilbert