One day a young enchantress told her suitor,
A prince whose passion nothing could allay:
“If you want me to believe your ardour,
Go, Shah-zadeh, your royal brother slay.”
Not daring disobey his mistress’ order,
His brother’s head he struck off with a sweep,
And soon he reappeared before her
And placed the skull at her beloved feet.
The charmer poured some poison in the death’s head.
“Drink the cup”, - her lover she enjoined.
He drank as though it were a benediction…
The blinder love, the surer it destroys.
I’ve worshipped life with passion and abandon,
And I’m to get what’s my reward at last:
The False One offers me a cup of poison,
That cup’s the death’s head of a youth tint’s past!
August 1943