Sweden's Laureate: Selected Poems of Verner von Heidenstam/Djufar's Song
DJUFAR'S SONG.
In Tanta, city of the dancing-girls,Where white and yellow cotton-blossoms grow,Where maize-fields fringe the delta-ed Nile with green,And water-wheels are turned by buffalo,—In that same town old Djufar lived, a manFamed for his tongue, for he had power to rhymeWith the long verses that the Orient lovesIn rhythm to the merry dancers' time.So well he sang the town—its minarets,Its hundred dove-towers, and its market-place—That the charmed listener sprang not up to dance,But rather wept, his hand before his face.
Early one morn he sat beside his door,Full-clad, though still the rising sun was red.Then all the maidens at the fountain cried:"Djufar's composing, he's forgot his bed,So that this evening when mid hashish fumes,Barefooted, to the sound of flutes we danceThe veil-dance, he may sing and lure us firstTo laughter and anon to tears, perchance."
Then answered Djufar: "Have I time for song,I, whom a desert grave will soon devour?Not even for my slumber would I loseSo cool and exquisite a morning hour." Then cried the youngest girl, as with a laughShe set on her black hair the jar of clay:"Our friend is over-old to poetize.Why, when will Djufar be a hundred, pray?"
Enraged, the bent old man arose and strewedCrumbs for his doves with visage all a-frown.But when he saw the cupolas that swelledLike clustered grapes above his native town,And looked across the plain, his aspect cleared."Come then, were I a hundred years and more,My ancient tongue would still have strength to singWhile yonder scene was spread around my door."
They shouted. People hurried from the townAnd sat as round a camp-fire in a mass;The drummer brought his kettle-drum along,Of fish-skin spread across a bowl of brass.At length, when the musicians formed a ring,Their flutes uplifted, lutes upon the knee,And slender rebecs with the strings on pegsOf bright wood from the Indian sandal-tree,And when in the soft motion of the danceThe coin that on each maiden's brow was setBegan to glitter like a spark of fire,Djufar approached the fountain-parapet.
He carefully drew out a scroll and penFrom the long silver sheath where they were storedAnd snapped the ink-horn open that had hung Beside him on a yellow silken cord.Untroubled calm lay over all the place,On Silence's forever silent land,The land of lethargy, hushed Egypt, whereThe very wave breaks voiceless on the strand.Sleeping flamingoes lined the bank! A boatSwam down the yellow mirror of the tide,Its after-cabin painted green and red,Drifting with neither oar nor sail to guide.
Old Djufar mounted on the parapetSolemnly, like an actor much-renowned,And mothers raised their little children upTo wait his song—but Djufar made no sound.His eyes dilated and glowed out beneathHis forehead, which was brown as darkened leather,And in his eagerly uplifted handAgainst the blue sky shone the pen's white feather.
He moved his lips in silence, he who oftHad charmed forth tears and laughter from the restBoth with his verses and his ringing voiceNow let his chin sink slowly to his breast.
He turned him from the folk and with a sleeveOf his burnoús he covered all his head.He burst out weeping. He let fall his penAnd back into his lowly home he fled.
Then cried the foremost maiden: "In good truthDjufar is fated never to be stirred By poet rapture more."—The next went homeIn anger from the fountain, but the thirdBeckoned to the musicians not to go.Then where the scroll lay wet with tears she bent,She raised it up, and, followed by the folkTo merry string- and drum-notes forth she went.She bore it to the city's tranquil shrine,Where in an aisle the scroll was kept, and longDid Tanta's daughters come to kiss it there,Thinking the while of Djufar's silent song.
The eye-joy that the Orient affords.No man with rows of signs can teach the soul;But ancient Djufar paints the ecstasyMost truly on his tear-stained, empty scroll.