Page:The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the East, Volume 08.djvu/63



To prayer and fasting when my heart inclined,

All my desire I surely hoped to find;

Alas! my purity is stained with wine,

My prayers are wasted like a breath of wind.

I worship rose-red cheeks with heart and soul,

I suffer not my hand to quit the bowl,

I make each part of me his function do,

Or e'er my parts be swallowed in the Whole.

This worldly love of yours is counterfeit,

And, like a half-spent blaze, lacks light and heat;

True love is his, who for days, months, and years,

Rests not, nor sleeps, nor craves for drink or meat.

Why spend life in vainglorious essay

All Being and Not-being to survey?

Since Death is ever pressing at your heels,

'Tis best to drink or dream your life away.

Some hanker after that vain fantasy

Of Houris, feigned in Paradise to be;

But, when the veil is lifted, they will find

How far they are from Thee, how far from Thee.

In Paradise, they tell us, Houris dwell,

And fountains run with wine and oxymel:

If these be lawful in the world to come,

Surely 'tis right to love them here as well.