Goethe's West-Easterly DivanRoberts brothers, 1877 - 264 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
Abraxas Allah allusion Arabs Art thou beauty beloved blessed BOOK breath Caliph called charming Christian couplet CUP-BEARER cypress delight Divan divine Dost thou drink dust earth Eastern Epimenides eyes faith famous favorite feeling Fettich friends genius German give glances glow Goethe Goethe's greeting Hafis hand Hatem heart heaven holy Hoopoe HOURI kiss Koran light live look love's lover maiden Medschnun Minna Herzlieb mistress Mohammed Mohammedan morning mystic never night nought Nusreddin o'er once Oriental parables Paradise passion Persian Persian Poets poem poet poet's praise preserved Prince Prophet rhyme roses Saadi Saracen sense Shah sing song sorrow soul speak spirit stars style Sufi Sufism Suleika Sultan sweet thee thing thou art thou canst thou dost thou hast thought thousand Timur tion translated twas twill verse Vizier weep whole wilt wind wine word yonder youth
Popular passages
Page 175 - s to fight ere the guerdon be gained, The reward of it all. I was ever a fighter, so — one fight more, The best and the last! I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore, And bade me creep past. No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers The heroes of old, Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears Of pain, darkness and cold. For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, The black minute 's at end, And the elements...
Page 169 - It was the lark, the herald of the morn, No nightingale ; look, love, what envious streaks Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east. Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops; I must be gone and live, or stay and die.
Page 222 - Their Poets, including Hafiz, who are (with the exception of Firdausi) the most considerable in Persia, borrowed largely, indeed, of Omar's material, but turning it to a mystical Use more convenient to Themselves and the People they addressed ; a People quite as quick of Doubt as of Belief...
Page 233 - My own East! How nearer God we were! He glows above With scarce an intervention, presses close And palpitatingly, his soul o'er ours! We feel him, nor by painful reason know! The everlasting minute of creation Is felt there; now it is, as it was then; All changes at his instantaneous will, Not by the operation of a law Whose maker is elsewhere at other work.
Page 143 - We buy ashes for bread, We buy diluted wine; Give me of the true, Whose ample leaves and tendrils curled Among the silver hills of heaven, Draw everlasting dew; Wine of wine, Blood of the world, Form of forms and mould of statures, That I, intoxicated, And by the draught assimilated, May float at pleasure through all natures, The bird-language rightly spell, And that which roses say so well.
Page 93 - What the hammer ? what the chain ? In what furnace was thy brain ? What the anvil ? what dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp ? When the stars threw down their spears, And watered heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see ? Did he who made the lamb make thee...
Page 81 - For her sake I shall have estimation among the multitude and honour with the elders, though I be young. I shall be found of a quick conceit in judgment, and shall be admired in the sight of great men. When I hold my tongue, they shall abide my leisure, and when I speak, they shall give good ear unto me; if I talk much, they shall lay their hands upon their mouth.
Page 247 - O true believers, surely wine, and lots, and images, and divining arrows are an abomination of the work of Satan; therefore avoid them, that ye may prosper. Satan seeketh to sow dissension and hatred among you, by means of wine and lots, and to divert you from remembering God, and from prayer; will ye not therefore abstain from them...
Page 234 - Follow not his faithless glance With thy faded countenance, Nor teach my beating heart to fear, If leaves can mourn without a tear, How eyes must weep! O nightingale, Cease from thy enamoured tale— Leafy vine, unwreathe thy bower, Restless sunflower, cease to move, Or tell me all, what poisonous power Ye use against me— ALL.
Page 247 - They will ask thee concerning wine and lots. Answer, In both there is great sin, and also some things of use unto men; but their sinfulness is greater than their use.