Selected and translated from the Quatrains of
Khalilullah Khalili, 1908-1987

2.
I saw you once, as fair and fresh to me
As morning’s light upon the Indian Sea.
You blushed, and with one hand concealed a smile,
Yet love could not be hid indefinitely.

4.
Death is my comrade!  His upholding hand
Shall guide my steps when I’ve not strength to stand!
A life-sworn vassal to the Human Race,
And barque to bear my soul to Lethe’s strand.

8.
When young, I reveled in naiveté,
Till sobering truth, and cold reality,
Like sweet dregs, weaned my lips from Hope’s warm breast,
Then curdled in my belly sickeningly.

15.
Life is a stage, and we its mindless mimes,
Transparent dolls in puppet-master Time’s
Prosaic toy-box, speaking words we think
Our own, though little more than broken rhymes.

19.
Bare-breasted, slender goddess of youth’s glee,
No man has ever shunned thy company —
Though we’ve grown old, and youthful vigor lost,
Thou, laughing Hebe, livest eternally!

22.
Philosophers, within wee atomi,
Other worlds and other peoples see!
Absurd, that even in a modern age,
Still sense is ruled by myth and alchemy!

23.
[Thus says the butterfly.]
“Great Mountain, how majestically you rise,
Undaunted and sublimely to the skies!
Myself, I’m nothing — yet at liberty,
Whilst here your monstrous bulk enfettered lies!”

26.
Lay not a lighted taper on my grave;
Life’s fire prolonged my spirit doth not crave.
Nor do I ask for way-worn pilgrim’s tears.
Lay not ephemeral flowers on my grave!

32.
So long as there remains the will to crawl,
Life’s race has not been lost — prolonged, that’s all.
Though Hope’s wide gate be shut against my face,
Still, there is death, a fissure in the wall.