1856.]

Jámi, the Persian Poet.

Sacy's expression, hangs round his verse, even where the thoughts themselves are trivial; commonplace is redeemed by the exquisite words in which it is clothed, and the melody of his lines softens every extravagance.

He wants, indeed, Háfiz's large soul, which seemed to ransack all creation for images; his imagination

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is far more feeble and confined; yet in its own field of vision his eye is strong and clear. The desert, with its pilgrims, seems one of his favourite subjects, and the caravan and the Caaba supply him with countless allusions; he never tires of pointing to the pilgrim, hurrying on across the waste,—

The wind that meets him, blowing sand in his eyes, And his feet sinking deep in the burning sand below; or the desert itself,

What time in its wilds the whirlwind lifts its head, And makes pillars of sand for the tent of the sky! At the same time the prominent mysticism of his poetry gives it a peculiar interest to the English reader. In his odes Sufeyism comes distinctly out, and we can judge of its true merits and tendencies, and mark the truth which it contains, as well as the evil, which human

I.

error may have mingled therein. The following odes will supply specimens of both; for, if we admire the deep glow of religious feeling which pervades them, we must not pass over the Sufi's contempt of all outward forms, which would tend to place all religions on a level.

Whose is this litter on yonder camel with its golden bells,-
A hundred caravans of the heart* following in train behind?
"Tis the litter of one, who, did she but throw her curtain aside,
Would flood mountain and valley with the light of her cheek!
Oh the memory of that day, when I wandered after her camel,
And I heard her call to her side the dog that followed her.
I hastened up in my error,-and with a gracious smile,

She asked, 'how farest thou, bewildered lover of mine ?'

I am all consumed by thy love,-oh speed not in such haste,' I answered; Though well I know thou art my life, and life's manner is ever to hasten !' Oh Jámi,' she made reply, 'spread wide thy world-traversing wings,

With a free flight to soar to the soul's home of rest;

Or, if thy thoughts rise not so high, then stay, a fixed recluse,

By the ruins and blackened ashes of our old caravanserai !'

II.

Last night my eyes were closed in sleep, but my good fortune was awake, And the whole night, the livelong night, the image of my beloved was the companion of my soul.

The sweet melody of her voice still remains in my heart;

Oh, heaven! how sweet were the words that fell from her lips!

Alas! all that she said to me in that dream has passed from my memory, Though the livelong night till morning my sole thought was to repeat her words.

* Cf. Longfellow's

'The long-lost ventures of the heart,

That send no answer back again.'

The Sanskrit word for 'desire' (manoratha) means literally 'a mind-chariot.' This conceit not unfrequently occurs in Persian poetry. Compare Háfiz (in Fraser's Magazine for September, 1854, p. 292)—

"Yesterday she passed, but she cast no glance towards me;

Ah, helpless heart of mine, that knew not its life was passing.'

Diman is one of those picturesque desert-words which Jámi delights in. Freytag explains it- Vestigia habitaculorum et hominum ibi habitantium, et loci ob hanc causam nigri.'

Without her cheek the day is dark as night to my eyes;

Ah, blessed indeed the day, when my eyes were first fixed on that cheek! Oh, happy be thy dreams, mine eye; for Jámi in his sleep

Hath seen this night the vision, for which all his life long he hath watched,

III.

Long ere that day, when Heaven first kneaded the dust of man,
In my water and clay* love sowed the seed of thy desire.

All beauty art thou from head to foot,-one would say the eternal artist
Had moulded thy form not of water and clay, but of pure soul and heart.
Oh, reveal thy face, that towards the arch of thy brow may turn their eyes
The worshippers from the mosque, the devotees from the idol temple.
No belief we win from thee, howsoever our eyes with tears of blood
Write on the door and wall of thy street the story of our love.
If thou wert not my murderer,-oh, would that after my death
They might make bricks of my dust to build the tomb of thy victims.
Rise thou and shed my blood,--spread the crimson mat beneath my feet,
For fate hath at length resolved to fold up the carpet of my life.
On the future reversion of paradise have others fixed their hearts,-
But Jámi's paradise is at once paid to the full, wherever thou art seen !†

IV.

A hundred thorns from thy absence pierce the foot of my heart;
And from the garden of thy presence not a rose comes to my hand.

The resting-place of the bird of my heart was once the bough of the Sidrah tree;

'Twas the lure of thy baits that brought me into this snare.

Every one drinks a draught of the cup of thy love,

Be he a sheikh of the hermits, or be he a wine-worshipping reveller.

I have torn my heart away from the leaves of science and books of knowledge;

I would barter all that is for the wine of thy lip.

One draught, and the wine-worshipper is set free from self;

But the hapless self-worshipper,||-alas! he is never free!

From the threshold of the wine-tavern have our heads been exalted;

Oh, Heaven, may the waves of sorrow never sweep its foundations away! Oh Jámi, humbly bow at the foot of the bowl, like a glass,

For fate will shiver thy life's cup with the stones of circumstance.

V.

I went to the Caaba,** and there I longed for thy street;
I gazed on the Caaba's beauty, and remembered thy face.
When I saw the rites of the pilgrims and their sacrifices,
I stretched out the hand of desire towards thy black tresses.

* A favourite Eastern expression for the human body.

It is singular that, in composing this ode, Jámi seems evidently to have had in his mind the sixth of the odes from Háfiz, which we gave September, 1854. The same rhymes are used throughout, though the order is changed; but the images which they severally suggest to the two poets are very different.

A tree in Paradise.

§ The word dána, or 'grain,' used here for 'bait,' probably contains an allusion to that favourite beauty in Oriental descriptions-the mole on the cheek.-Cf. Jami's lines in the Salámán-She placed a musky (or 'black') grain upon her cheek, therewith to ensnare the bird of his heart.'

The continual theme of Eastern mystical writers is the need of escaping from self and personality, to be lost in the Deity. Jámi elsewhere says finely, at that time in my darkened fortune, I lay like a black shadow flung by the wall of self.'

Jám signifies a cup;' and Jámi is rather too fond of thus playing on his name. ** This ode will be best explained by the following extract from Gibbon's Decline, ch. 50-The same rites which are now accomplished by the faithful Mussulman were invented and practised by the superstition of the idolaters. At an awful distance they cast away their garments; seven times with hasty steps they encircled the Caaba, and kissed the black stone; seven times they visited and adored the adjacent mountains; seven times they threw stones into the valley of Mina; and

1856.]

Jámi, the Persian Poet.

When, with an hundred prayers, I seized the ring of the Caaba's door, I uttered a sigh for the ringlets of thy musky locks.

The pilgrims turned their faces to pay their adorations;

From the midst of the throng I turned my heart's face to thee.

From spot to spot I passed,-for thee was my sole desire;

Each toilsome round that I paced, I paced in my search for thee.

On the station of Arafat* the pilgrims stood, reciting their prayers;

I closed my lips from prayer, and only spake of thee.

In the valley of Mina they knelt, and poured forth their petitions,

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But, like Jámi,† free from them all, I only poured forth my desire for thee!

VI.

Yon teacher, what aileth him, that, creeping into his cell,

He renounces fellowship with the world, to bind it but closer with himself? Each thread of sympathy which he severs from other men,

He only winds tight round himself, as the silkworm its cocoon.

He himself is the world-and he asks to be free from the world;

How shall he be free from the world, who is not yet free from himself?

Let him talk as he will of the Caaba, and the pilgrims who toil to its gate,His ear hath ne'er heard the sound of that caravan's camel-bell.

He has left the pursuit of knowledge, and is frantic after tinsel;

He has squandered his pearls of price, and has bought only children's beads.

Oh Jámi, ask not from him the qualities of the wine of love;

Never hath he seen that cup, and never tasted its wine!

VII.

O Musulmáns, what help can I find 'gainst this wanton tyrant of stony heart?

All my hopes from her lips are blasted,-all my patience at her cheek is gone!

If I set my body to leave her, weary and stale is life;

If I fix my heart on her presence, profitless is the thought.

They tell me the cure of love may be found in travel; but I know too well
That with each successive stage would her love in my heart grow more.
If my fast-falling tears rained not to quench the fire,

From the lightning of my hot sighs would camel and saddle be burned.
To that pearl of priceless worth how shall I bend my way,

When from me to it lie oceans of tears between?

In the whirlpool of sorrow our bark of hope is wrecked;

Do not thou fling, oh friend, the stones of reproach from the shore!
Hand to the lords of festivity, oh Fortune, the wine of gladness;
For Jámi the cup of sorrow hath drained to drunkenness.

VIII.

The print on the ground from thy horse's hoof

Is a more auspicious sight than the new moon§ in the sky.

By night a moon, and a sun by day, oh hide not that face of thine,
For 'tis hard indeed to see the world, except by the light of thy face.

the pilgrimage was achieved, as at the present hour, by a sacrifice of sheep and camels, and the burial of their hair and nails in the consecrated ground.' Jámi visited Mecca as a pilgrim in 1472; see the memoir prefixed to the admirable translation of his Salámán and Absál, lately published.

* A mountain near Mecca.

The Persian poets, as our readers will have observed, invariably bring in their names at the conclusion of each ghazal; this is usually done in a short soliloquy, but sometimes, as in the present ode, the poet speaks of himself as another person. Compare the beautiful lines, quoted by Sir W. Jones, in his 'Commentarii Poeseos Asiaticæ,' from Theodorus Prodromus, the Greek romancist :

Κρατῆρα μακρὸν ἡδονῆς και δακρύων
Κιρνῶντες ἐξέπινον ἄχρις ἐς μέθην.

One of the Persian names for the moon is na'l-i-shám, the horse-shoe of evening.'

Glad is the heart to meet the wayfarers journeying to thy door;
What better sight than the caravan to him who hath lost his road?
So long for grief for thee have my nails torn my breast,

That ye can see my bones through the rents of my garments.

I lost myself in ecstasy, as the Beloved rode by slowly with tightened reins,*

Oh, who can behold unmoved that hand and those reins?

By thy love is Jámi so melted, that in his heart,

As wine in the cup, can be seen the image of thy lip!

IX.

Who is this moon that enters by the door of my chamber,

And at the reflection of her cheek all my darkness turns to light?

Yea, rather a resplendent sun, at whose appearing

The star of my fortune culminates in the highest heaven!

With the tears of my eyes have I moistened the clay of sorrow,

Till from that clay at last upsprings the rose of joy.

Our life has gone from our hands,-what gift have we left for an offering To welcome her footstep, if after our death she passes over our grave? For my meek subservience the rival calls me her dog;

Ample honour for me is this name in the two worlds.

I have laid down my life in the dust of her footstep; yet what profit of it all? My humble service meets not the acceptance of her bounty.

Her presence, O Jámi, is thy highest range of hope!

Still hope thou on, for thy hopes shall yet attain their end.

Oh, in the air of thy love all creatures are as motes !†

No being knoweth aught of the essence of thy nature.

The eye of Reason was dazzled, when in the beginning of eternity
Thy beauty revealed its reflections in the mirror of qualities!‡
Every brick from the idol-temple becomes another Caaba,

If one ray of thy beauty falls upon Somnath.

Wheresoever shines one gleam of the light of thy glory,

Iza'§ is shorn of its splendour, and Lát is reft of its power.

Whosoever is drowned in the ocean of thy majesty

Finds, like the prophet Khizr,|| the road to the fountain of life.
To the Caaba of thy search whosoever would turn his face,

Must first renounce all reverence for created beings.

To Jámi's thirsty lips, oh, in bounty vouchsafe one cup

Of that wine, whose taste is freedom from the dregs of ignorance!

XI.

My heart hath not found thy presence; I have given my life for thy image; The wanderer after the fountain hath died with parched lips in the mirage.T My beloved, when with her garment she wipes the tears from my cheek, Lets drop my very heart's blood, as she wrings the mantle.

* Háfiz has a fine couplet, which Jámi may have imitated:

Ride on, oh king of the realm of beauty, but ride slow, with tightened reinAt the end of every street stands a suppliant for justice!'

This remarkable ode occurs in the middle of Jámi's Diwán, and is one of those 'glaring instances' which so strongly confirm the mystical interpretation of these Eastern ghazals.

Forms and qualities are, according to the Sufi doctrine, but reflexions of the Divinity and of his attributes, without individual reality; and are called indifferently, forms, names, splendours, or qualities of God.'-Asiatic Journal, 1840. § Iza and Lát were two idols worshipped by the Arabs in the time of ignorance' before Mohammed.

The prophet Khizr is said to have discovered and drunk of the fountain of life. The Seráb, or 'mirage,' is no doubt the same word as the Hebrew sháráb, in Isaiah, xxxv. 7. (See Gesenius.) The image becomes far more vivid if, instead of the parched ground' of our authorized version, we translate it the mirage shall become a lake.'

1856.]

Jámi, the Persian Poet.

I am grown so thin and worn, that, like the strings of a harp,*
On my wasted body ye can count my every vein!

The lover takes his soul in his hand when he comes into thy presence;
Such homage as he can, that doth the beggar bring.

How could I drink wine, when the cupbearer in my hand

Placed last night the ruby wine, and I, alas! far from thy lip?

Now from my bosom's heat melts the cup, like the wine;

And now from my sighs' cold breath freezes the wine, like the cup!

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Oh, wherefore should Jami's nails thus passionately rend his breast?
He would erase from his heart every letter that tells not of devotion to thee!

XII.

Again the achet in my head,-from whose drunken eye does it come? Again, the arrow-point rankling in my heart, from whose bow does it come?

My heart has gone from my hand;-oh breeze, why comes not back
That bird of the nest of fidelity,-in whose snare is it caught?

Oh my heart, count thou as rest the stroke of the loved one's sword,
Look not thou at the sword,-heed only whose is the hand!
For a lifetime have I laid my head as the dust of her street;

Yet none asks, as he passes by, 'For whose foot waits it there to be trampled on?'

Within this heart of mine hath the loved one's image fixed its home;
See this ruined chamber, whose dwelling-place is it now!

A fire-temple is my bosom,-and what shall I say? within it

My heart, through its darkened fortune, is a Hindú fire-worshipper

of whom?

With the wine of the sorrow of love is the soul of Jámi drunken;
Yet knoweth none of his friends from whom came the draught!

XIII.

Alas, this peri-faced beauty hath wholly driven me mad;

My own reason calls me a stranger, nor will she herself call me a friend. Every Musulman, who beholds the form of that foreign idol,

Turns his back to the mosque and Mecca, and his face to the idol-temple. Whosoever reads the story of Laili and Majnún,

As soon as he hears my history, bids farewell to the legend.

This intoxication and madness are beyond the power of wine;

All that her friends have suffered comes from her drunken eye.

A very treasure is love, and our desolate heart is a desert ;

How to such a desert can such a treasure find its way?

For the love of thy cheek and mole hath my soul descended to the body,
The hungry bird hath come down to taste the water and the lure!
Oh, Jámi, make thyself glad with the dregs of the cup of sorrow,

If this be the liquor which the cup-bearer pours into thy bowl.

XIV.

Long ere that day when they built yonder majestic dome,

My Mecca was the arch of that vaulted brow of thine.

Thy cheek was that lamp of light, which, in the night of Sinai,

Illumined the holy valley with its mystic blaze.

Those who drain the cup of thy sorrow, the hermits with their woollen rags on their shoulders,

Many are the vows of homage which they have paid to that brow's empyrean arch!

Once thy eyes darted their glances forth, and their brightness slew;
Alas, my turn hath come, and why have they forgot their power?

This might also refer to the lines on the hand, but Jámi has elsewhere a somewhat similar conceit :

With my wailings and cries my body is bent like a harp,

And my tears, as they stream to my feet, hang from each eyelash like the strings! + Khumár, or 'crapula.'