Abu-Mansur Daqiqi Quotes

Daqiqi has chosen four qualities of all good and evil things in the world:
Ruby-colored lips and the sound of the lute.
Old red wine and the Zoroastrian religion!

To ward the kingdom, Fortune took thy sword,
And beauty chose thy hand, herself to word.
In Heaven for thy decree Fate listening stands,
The dinar from its ore sets out to win thy hands.

A composite whose body is of light,
But all its soul and spirit of fiery strain;
A star that hath its setting in the mouth,
But ever rises on the cheeks again

Choice wine, whose bitter strength can sweeten best
The embittered mind, and flood
The air with colour, as when goshawk's breast
Is dyed with pheasant's blood

O would that in the world there were no night,
That I might ne'er be parted from her lips!
No scorpion-sting would sink deep in my heart
But for her scorpion coils of darkest hair.
If' neath her lip no starry dimple shone,
I would not linger with the stars till day;
And if she were not cast in beauty's mould,
My soul would not be moulded of her love.
If I must live without my Well-beloved,
O God! I would there were no life for me.