Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936). Verse: 1885–1918. 1922.
Certain Maxims of Hafiz
Does not the Young Man try Its temper and pace ere he buy?
If She be pleasant to look on, what does the Young Man say?
“Lo! She is pleasant to look on. Give Her to me to-day!”
If he borrowed in life from a native at sixty per cent. per annum.
The pain of one maiden’s refusal is drowned in the pain of the next.
Which of the three will you trust at the end of an Indian June?
Make your peace with the women, and men will make you L. G.
Is she under thirty, the woman who holds a boy in her thrall?
The blackbuck is stalked through the bullock, and Man through jealousy.
Does not the boar break cover just when you’re lighting a weed?
Take His money, my son, praising Allah. The kid was ordained to be sold.
That you work him in office or dog-cart lightly—but give him no rest.
But the colt who is wise will abstain from the terrible thorn-bit of Marriage.
On a Derby Sweep, or our neighbour’s wife, or the horse that we buy from a friend.
To the ways of a man with a horse, when selling or racing that same.
It is ill. The cold rocks of El-Gidar smile thus on the waves at their feet.
In public Her face is averted, with anger She nameth thy name.
It is well. Was there ever a loser content with the loss of the game?
And the Brand of the Dog is upon him by whom is the secret revealed.
If She have written a letter, delay not an instant but burn it.
Tear it in pieces, O Fool, and the wind to her mate shall return it!
If there be trouble to Herward, and a lie of the blackest can clear,
Lie, while thy lips can move or a man is alive to hear.
Yet lip meets with lip at the lastward. Get out! She has been there before.
They are pecked on the ear and the chin and the nose who are lacking in lore.
Though Allah and Earth pardon Sin, remaineth for ever Remorse.
“Alas! I do not understand,” my son, be thou nowise afraid.
In vain in the sight of the Bird is the net of the Fowler displayed.
Demanding thy name on stamped paper, one day or one hour—refrain.
Are the links of thy fetters so light that thou cravest another man’s chain?