C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Author Unknown

Poems from Oriental Languages: The Time of the Barmecides

“MY eyes are filmed, my beard is gray,

I am bowed with the weight of years:

I would I were stretched in my bed of clay,

With my long-lost youth’s compeers!

For back to the Past, though the thought brings woe,

My memory ever glides,—

To the old, old time, long, long ago—

The Time of the Barmecides!

To the old, old time, long, long ago—

The Time of the Barmecides.

Then youth was mine, and a fierce wild will,

And an iron arm in war,

And a fleet foot high upon Ishkar’s hill

When the watch-lights glimmered afar,

And a barb as fiery as any I know

That Khoord or Bedaween rides,

Ere my friends lay low—long, long ago,

In the Time of the Barmecides,

Ere my friends lay low—long, long ago,

In the Time of the Barmecides.

One golden djam illumed my board,

One silver zhaun was there;

At hand my tried Karamanian sword

Lay always bright and bare:

For those were days when the angry blow

Supplanted the word that chides,—

When hearts could glow—long, long ago,

In the Time of the Barmecides,

When hearts could glow—long, long ago,

In the Time of the Barmecides.

Through city and desert my mates and I

Were free to rove and roam,

Our canopy the deep of the sky,

Or the roof of the palace-dome;—

Oh, ours was that vivid life to and fro

Which only Sloth derides:

Men spent life so, long, long ago,

In the Time of the Barmecides;

Men spent life so, long, long ago,

In the Time of the Barmecides.

I see rich Bagdad once agen,

With its turrets of Moorish mold,

And the Khalif’s twice five hundred men,

Whose binishes flamed with gold;

I call up many a gorgeous show

Which the pall of oblivion hides,—

All passed like snow, long, long ago,

With the Time of the Barmecides;

All passed like snow, long, long ago,

With the Time of the Barmecides!

But mine eye is dim, and my beard is gray,

And I bend with the weight of years:

May I soon go down to the House of Clay

Where slumber my youth’s compeers!

For with them and the Past, though the thought wakes woe,

My memory ever abides,

And I mourn for the times gone long ago,

For the Times of the Barmecides!

I mourn for the times gone long ago,

For the Times of the Barmecides!

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