Hannah’s Reviews > The Mirror of My Heart: A Thousand Years of Persian Poetry by Women > Status Update

“I love peace […] I’m unfit for the rowdiness of domestic war” Alam Taj (1883-1947)

“Even for upright men, the conscience-stricken kind
The world if women’s still an insult to the mind;
But freedom’s here, deliverance’s day won’t wait-
Come men and women, raise your heads, don’t hesitate;
What use is wringing hands and tearing clothes in fear,
The turmoil of these times will end, thé day is here”
Kasma’i 1883-1963

“We cannot build a house upon
This flowing flood of emptiness
Or think of life eternal in
This ruin where we briefly stay”

Pari Khan Khanom 1548-1578

“We sleep together and you never satisfy me
I talk to you at night—your silences defy me;
I’m thirsty, and you claim you are the Fount of Life—
For God’s sake, where’s the water then that you deny me?”

Mehri (14th/15th c.)

“From now on I renounce renunciations”
*
“Jahan, be careful not to say
Too much; it’s pitiful
To give a jewel to someone who
Can’t see it’s valuable”
*
“The grief’s so scorched my heart that when I’m dust
That dust will show my sorrow all too well;
My house that was a shining paradise
Is darker now than any dungeon cell”

Jahan Melek Khatun (c.1324-c.1384)

“The drops of sorrow Heaven rains on me
Have sent me wandering over land and sea —
Ah, would that they could bring me to the place
That frees me from the being that is me”
Delshad Khatum (14th c.)