Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PART II THE POEMS OF ABU'L ALA, AND SOME OTHERS . . . and after the jungle comes the open country. (Abu'l Ala, Letter 39.) On his approaching blindness Some day, when dust is on this eye, The years of blindness will not signify. The graveyard cannot bring me gloom, Nor yet can one eye's blindness, nor this other's rheum. Abu Dshafer, the judge, on Abu'l Ala At Ma'arrah dwells a dog Who thinks religion is a clog, And in the meanwhile has Ma'arrah Become the surname of a dog. so THE POEMS OF ABU'L ALA 81 Quatrains by AMI Ala As dawn was flinging on the purple sky The robe of green, the camel's heavy tread Sank in the soil, and lo ! the riders said : What is it that has turned our luck awry ? May be that people of a faded stem Have thrown a furtive glance upon the day That was in splendour bei$g borne away, Whereof no portion was reserved for them. When that my youth was like a place of scars Where flame is dead, then all my joy was spent, And it could not return and if a tent Had been erected for me in the stars. You would have darkness howling on the day Which took a friend. It was the day before Which took a comrade to the misty shore Of sleep and will it drive your sleep away ? They have been powerless by force and wit And moving eloquence and lover's guile This cheek or that one to possess awhile, And earth has made herself the queen of it. But I remember, love, how you did swear That men should never say your neck was bowed For lovely ornament, you were so proud, And now the damp of earth is lying there. 82 THE POEMS OF ABU'L ALA, The soul we have is longing for release, And in the calm of twilight it will gaze From out the prison, it will dream of days Before they lured it from eternal peace. ...