There dwelt, a man of much learning
From the poets of longer ago,
In a small village turning into town
He was born to a farmer rough and crude
Despite whose father’s trying
He couldn’t attain to high school,
And the man of much learning
His son, took very fond fancy
Of being himself the same a day
As were his friends of the buried past
He had a flitting soul once
In the days he hitherto had worked
He dreamt and dreamt a lot
Both day and night, the pervert Joseph,
Love in all the pure was all
He longed for whole of his life
But attain to it he could never
Except in the mildewed, rusting leaves
Many a century before were quilled
Only there he found what truth was
Only there he found the most Truthful
It was relieving in the mercenary hustle
Hissing around on every side
He couldn’t help sailing along the stream
Through many a windy by paths
In the deserted woods, all moss and hay,
He saw there Saturn, sullen and sad
Expelled by his own blood, he saw
The aspiring youth driving the Sun
All along the bluer camouflaging.
And bold Ixion put to hold a wheeling rock
And the stalwart Mars trapped in a net
And the shameless hussy smiling beside
There saw he Hesione picked by boaters
And the Ilion burnt in a single night
Helen sailing with the jilted king again
And many myriad other of the kind
He was quite surfeited until then
When a new Dawn appeared all of sudden
kindling slow and slow in his teemed head
Very fortunate rays of a glistening sparkle
Showing him on to a garden
The garden of delight you may it call
For there nothing lack of aught and never
The rushy streams of milk, of honey
And very translucent rills of eternity
The joyous lawns of verdure neatly trimmed
Tall trees on all sides fresh and green
Attracting the hearts of a royal descent
A youthful host of the meekly port
Bright in faces, in the eyes bashful
And none so royal in worlds you can’t find
Reclining on the couches embroidered
With the burnished gold and silver
And the young stewards in richest attires
Tending them around always
With the whatever food they desired
Flesh of the fowls of every genre
And whatsoever elixir they liked to drink
It was present forthwith in a wink
And ‘tisn’t the brood of mere fancy
The truth is what I’m striving to report
And the weather was always spring there
Flowers of sundry kinds glowing in bliss
breathing such the richest odours
He never had smelled all his life
Commingling with the air turned fragrant
The atmosphere all around
There was no revel not the least
But peace and lulling delight was all
That was cradling the life everywhere
Eventide Musing : Safdar Bhatti
