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(’Azubah)
I AH! ingrate people whom I sought to please! | |
| Ah! cruel people, scornful, careless men, | |
| And dark, sly women, dreaming of new ease— | |
| Abandon me! Scowl calmly on me when | |
| You do behold me! You who brought me wine | 5 |
| To drink, fierce-spiced, and pomegranates to eat, | |
| And fat, black grapes, red apricots and fine | |
| Wheat cakes and glossy olives sweet: | |
| Who gave me smoothly flowing, oily phrase | |
| And guerdon brought me of ecstatic praise: | 10 |
| Lo! now because I sit alone forlorn, | |
| Throw me your bitter herbs and crumbs of scorn. | |
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II I danced before you in the Satrap’s hall; | |
| For you I trained my small elastic feet. | |
| I wore your garlands, bowed and carried all | 15 |
| Your flowery offerings. Freely did I eat | |
| Of your rich banquet, cruel people, cold | |
| And scornful people! Gifts ye cast me now, | |
| Because I sit alone and have grown old | |
| Of sick’ning lees of wine, no wreaths for brow | 20 |
| Not ambergris nor cassia do ye bring, | |
| Nor frankincense, nor any precious thing! | |
| You only laugh and thrust your stinging words | |
| At ’Azubah, stabbing her heart like swords. | |
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III Ye fondled once my black, smooth hair, and said, | 25 |
| “See how her tresses glisten in the light!” | |
| Ashes are now strewn upon my faded head, | |
| No longer lives in eyes of mine the sprite | |
| Of joyance. All my face is worn and wan, | |
| My gold-embroidered raiment is threadbare; | 30 |
| The sea-shell color from my cheek hath gone, | |
| I sit and wrap myself in sack-cloth wear. | |
| “Who cares for ’Azubah?” I say and sigh. | |
| Forsake me cruel people; pass me by; | |
| No pleasance grant me, sing me no joy-song, | 35 |
| Too old I am and weak, erst fair and strong. | |
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IV Ah! surely God shall cause to flow for me | |
| Some rills of comfort through the wilderness | |
| And cause to grow some balm-exhaling tree | |
| On the wide desert of my loneliness! | 40 |
| I must not sit in hopeless solitude | |
| List’ning to the merry voices in the street, | |
| Nursing my horrid pain to quietude, | |
| Envious of sunny faces I may meet. | |
| ’Azubah, once all joyless, joys shall glean, | 45 |
| The desert shall be fruitful and grow green;— | |
| God whispers me! So feed me with your scorn, | |
| Oh! ingrate people, while I sit forlorn! | |
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