A Flute Of Marvel

Edward Powys Mathers 1892 (Forest Hill, London) – 1939



Under the leaves and cool flowers
The wind brought me the sound of a flute
From far away.
  
I cut a branch of willow
And answered with a lazy song.
  
Even at night, when all slept,
The birds were listening to a conversation
In their own language.
  
From the Chinese of Li Po (705-763).
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Submitted on August 03, 2020

Modified on March 05, 2023

17 sec read
13

Quick analysis:

Scheme XXX AX XXX A
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 280
Words 57
Stanzas 4
Stanza Lengths 3, 2, 3, 1

Edward Powys Mathers

Edward Powys Mathers was an English translator and poet, and also a pioneer of compiling advanced cryptic crosswords. Powys Mathers was born in Forest Hill, London, the son of a newspaper proprietor. He was educated at Loretto and Trinity College, Oxford. He is well known as the translator of J. C. Mardrus's French version of One Thousand Nights and One Night. His English version of Mardrus appeared in 1923, and is known as Mardrus/Mathers. He is known also for the translations The Garden of Bright Waters: One Hundred and Twenty Asiatic Love Poems; and of the Kashmiri poet Bilhana in Bilhana: Black Marigolds, a free interpretation in the tradition of Edward FitzGerald. These are not scholarly works, and are in some cases based on intermediate versions in European languages. Some of his translations were set to music by Aaron Copland. He was also a composer of cryptic crosswords for The Observer under the pseudonym "Torquemada" from 1926 until his death. Under this pseudonym, he reviewed detective stories from 1934 to 1939. more…

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