IN THE MAHUR MODE
I saw that moon,
A shawl from Lahore
Tossed over her shoulder
And over cheeks of rose
She wore
A veil of light.
Staircases
Drunk on the tender kiss
Of her hem,
She descends,
With a thousand allures,
From a porcelain palace.
She gathers up her skirts
And leaps
Into a triple-oared skiff
As, I suppose,
Would the new moon
Pass over a crystal mirror
All along the banks
On either Side
The folk of Sadabad
In bands
Applaud from afar
The promise of her coming.
And from the shores
Of the Silver Canal
Your voice breaks forth,
Oh Kemâl,
Like a fountain of gold
Singing in the mâhûr mode.
Translated by Walter G. Andrews & Kemal Silay
SONG
When the gusty pearls of laughter yesterday rose from your
house,
It was I who passed, beloved, in a boat upon the sea!
With my heart to far horizons Sailing from you through the
night,
It was I who passed, beloved, in a boat upon the sea!
There was deathless joy and pleasure yesterday in your
carouse
Strains of music compassing the bay until the dawn;
As the melodies were raising and the waters paled with
light,
It was I who passed, beloved, in a boat upon the sea!
Translated by Bernard Lewis
LIFE
There is a halt where sea and sun appear,
There is a halt where both the worlds appear,
And the last halt—an autumn long drawn out—
Where past and future as a dream appear.
Translated by Bernard Lewis
GAZEL
TO GEDIK AHMED PASA
The winds prevail upon the breath of Christ
The galleons conquer to the foeman shore.
To far Otranto stormed Ahmed Paşa
Perhaps as far as Rome the horsetails roar.
Cry: 'God is One!': the prayer call must reach
Yon famous church where infidels adore.
From Roman Pope to Christ himself the light
Of Islam flood the infidel at war.
Let Kemal be an offering for your soul
To topmost heaven let this gazel soar.
Translated by Bernard Lewis
THE DEATH OF HAFIZ
A rose-tree blooms in Hafiz' garden grave,
Each day anew its crimson leaves unfold,
Each night the Bulbul weep until the dawn,
Its cadences evoke Shiraz of old.
For him, death is a land of peaceful spring,
His heart like incense permeates the years
Each night amid the cypress by his tomb
A Bulbul sings, each day a rose appears.
Translated by Bernard Lewis
THE SPRING OF LOVE
The spring of love was burgeoning, I said 'Let joy
commence!'
And with a slipper made of kisses shod that slender foot.
In Sadabad where roses bloom that kings did not disdain
I called upon the moonlight too to join the bridal train.
So that the sky might gaze upon those gay dishevelled locks,
And see the rose she holds bewitched into a flame-hued
glass,
While in the sighing night of spring the nightingales
complain,
I called upon the moonlight too to join the bridal train.
Kemal: You saw and sang of days in paths of life and joy,
My ardour lent a magic to the age of Ahmed Khan,
One night I tasted bygone pleasures in this house of pain
And called upon the moonlight too to join the bridal train.
Translated by Bernard Lewis
NIGHT
Kandilli floated upon sleep—
We trailed the moonlight on the deep.
We took a shining silver track
And spoke no word of turning back.
Phantom trees on the dreaming crest...
Pensive slopes where the waters rest...
The season's end was such a time—
The distant note of a hidden chime.
We passed and vanished far away
Ere the dream was lost at break of day.
Translated by Bernard Lewis
VOICE
For many days I saw and questioned no one.
I said, "O God! At last my griefs are stilled."
Is there a feeling sweet as convalescence?
My heart, winged with the impulse of this joy,
Saw a new world of spring amid the skies,
A time of dreams, an evening in Bebek,
An evening like a fine unblemished face,
Windows reflecting on the hills beyond,
The quiet bay, the gaily-fronted keep
Of Küçüksu, the lonely woods beside,
The hills encompassed with tumultuous joy,
The swaying trees, moved by a single urge,
Pensively listening to the cadenced wind...
I saw two boats glide from the open sea,
And in a moment, from unshuttered summer,
The sound of a vast song rose from the Straits,
Pulsed with an endless memory of love,
Echoed along the range of wakening hills;
It passed from peak to peak and all about
And sank into the weary, travelled sea.
I woke from dreaming with a sudden pain;
Again I burned as in shirt of flame.
I saw her everywhere, with that same look,
With that same hope and beauty; in her mouth
A blood-red rose, a wine-glass in her hand.
I thought this very day was once again
The day when first she overcame my heart.
Translated by Bernard Lewis
GAZEL
The ancient carouse of Jemshid
With a tinkling of wine-cups returns;
And pleasure from nightfall till dawn
With cyclical dances returns.
The mirrors of pleasure reflect
The flames of the torch of the heart;
With a thousand moons and stars
Beauty with passion returns.
The souls of the chantings of old
Rise open and bright to the sky,
And Rast and Mahur and Uşşak
Are here as Muhayyer returns.
The fountain of joy is redeemed,
The kingdom of heaven descends,
And gliding from Heaven to earth,
With the plume of an eagle returns.
The mystics who came to this feast
Are sated with joy—and Kemal
Returns to the mercy of God
With the last of his wine-cups returns.
Translated by Bernard Lewis
THE OPEN SEA
As I passed my childhood in Balkan towns, I felt
At every instant, a tongue of flame-like longing.
With the melancholy that devastated Byron in my heart
I wandered my youth through the hills in a mute dream,
I breathed the free air of Rakofça's fields,
Felt the hot desire of my raider ancestors:
For centuries a summer's racing northward
Lingered like an echo roaring in my gut...
Army in defeat, the entire country in despair,
Yet every night I dreamt a sense of victory.
The remnants of migrations, exilic emotions,
Waters streaming from across sorrowful borders,
Murmered together in my heart with that sense;
I knew it then, the taste of endlessness on the horizon!
I said one day, "I wish for neither lover nor locale!"
And so set out on a long exile, roamed from land to land;
Went to that final country, last frontier of earth,
And still on my tongue I taste the wide sea's salt!
In the uttermost west, most clamorous of final shores,
At a flood tide, the skies all draped in lead,
I saw that thousand-headed dragon they call the sea;
I saw it... the skin that turned its lovely body emerald
With a sharp shuddering, moment by moment it writhed;
I saw and knew it was that dragon coming to life.
Oh what a fervent coming... from the endless horizon!
How it gathered itself up of a sudden and roared!
Steam and sail, they all fled for the harbor,
The vast expanse and sea-scape belonged to it alone!
Alone it stood there, rebellious and enraged,
It gaped a thousand caverns, howling long and long,
I sensed its majestic grief as though I knew it well!
Face to face with your spirit I was, at that high-tide,
I listened to your plaint, oh eternally tormented sea!
I felt that in our souls we are one with you, in exile,
Realized that no lovely shore would give rest
To this agony, this unending thirst.
Translated by Walter G. Andrews
THE SONG OF MOHACS
It was we who flew to that assault on wings of love;
It was we who were in the ranks of those first hundred
horsemen,
hurled forth that morn.
We flew with the desire to be seen on the horizon of Mohacs,
That famous plain which came alive with the neighing of
horses!
It was the day of the conquest of yet another land;
We were seen at that spot for which we gave our lives.
We sheltered in the embrace of Victory,
That rose-faced beauty whose every kiss is a tulip;
we were sated with that
amorous union!
To the world we bade farewell; we hurled ourselves in full
array;
This would be our last attack! Let it be known throughout
the ages!
As the heavens opened for us one by one, for the last time
we fought on.
Together with the angels we took the road which leads to
Allah.
With our four horseshoes we all passed through Heaven's
Gate;
There at once we saw our forebears of yore.
Together we are now in the garden with the martyrs,
Together with those young warriors who had died as we did.
On the earth where we were born there remained of us but a
memory
like lightning from the sound of our horseshoes!
Translated by Walter Feldman
The great Itri has of old been called
The Patron of our music;
How he leads the people far and near,
That conqueror of the day-break,
On how many holiday mornings early
Rattling the heavens with their voices massed together,
Have they chanted the magnificent Tekbir.
From Budapest to Iraq, even unto Egypt,
From the furthest conquered lands,
The breeze free-flowing o'er the homeland,
Brought with it sound from every blossoming spring.
This man of genius collected them
So that from the plane trees he heard us,
Heard our tale of seven centuries.
In his music flowed on one hand Faith,
On the other, all of Life;
From every side that brightness of the city, the Bosphorus
Flowed with the blue Tunca, and proud Euphrates.
With what voices, with our sky and earth,
With our sadness, our passion, our victories,
Flowed that creation, which resembled us.
How many times have I listened to the Neva-Kâr,
A refrain which is both broad and lively:
While scattering the secrets of the mode Neva,
Brightness shines from the horizons of the Orient;
Drunk with every syllable of his words,
By night, one by one they set out,
Toward the dawn go fifty million souls.
But Chance and Fortune enviously
Have hidden more than a thousand of his works,
As his inheritance there remain to us but twenty.
His Hymn to the Prophet, most awesome and profound,
Then appear the flute and kettle-drum,
And while the turning of the dervishes grows wilder,
His liturgy ascends the seven-tiered Celestial Throne.
He who was the master of a splendid world
Of voice and string,
Remains to us a mystery.
Our learned men know not, who was he?
Who hides his works today?
Are they a treasure kept by Eternity?
Does someone know? Where might they be today?
Death, which covers up such music
Leaves no consolation to mankind.
My heart still is blind
As in exile it passes many hours,
It falls into a pleasant revery:
Perhaps those compositions are yet played,
On an Ocean which never ship shall pass.
Translated by Walter Feldman
[From An Anthology of Turkish literature, Edited by
Kemal Silay]
