Love and Wine (Poem of the Day: Abu Nuwas of Baghdad)

Abū Nuwas al-Hasan ibn Hanī al-Hakamī (756–814) | Love and Wine | – –

Ho! a cup, and fill it up, and tell me it is wine,

For never will I drink in shade if I can drink in shine.

Curst and poor is every hour that sober I must go,

But rich am I whene’er well drunk I stagger to and fro.

Speak, for shame, the loved one’s name, let vain disguises fall;

Good for naught are pleasures hid behind a curtain-wall.

– – Reynold A. Nicholson, Translations of Eastern Poetry and Prose (Cambridge at the University Press, 1922), no. 33.

For more on Abu Nuwas see Encyclopedia Britannica