Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HASSAN AND HASSOUN, by CLINTON SCOLLARD


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HASSAN AND HASSOUN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Said hassan to hassoun: / ''t were a boon
Last Line: Both hassoun and hassan!
Subject(s): Islam; Wisdom; Youth


SAID Hassan to Hassoun:
"'T were a boon
If this love that enfolds us as fire,
This dream of delight and desire,
That is torture at midnight and noon,
Should lapse, should forever be laid
In sepulture, a shadowless shade,
Like a lifeless and lusterless moon,"
Said Hassan to Hassoun.

Said Hassoun to Hassan:
"You would ban
All our days and our ways with a gloom
Like the outermost regions of Doom!
We should dwell in one long Ramadan,
A fast with no feasting for aye,
And beauty and bloom plucked away,
And only a desert to scan,"
Said Hassoun to Hassan.

Said Hassan to Hassoun:
"'T is a tune
That tricks us, this love, that allures,
Till a frenzy engrips us no cures
May allay, for all bird-voices croon,
And the winds and the waves alike frame
One lyrically maddening name,
A very device of Mahoun,"
Said Hassan to Hassoun.

Said Hassoun to Hassan:
"'T is a plan
That Allah has shaped to uplift
From the silt and the shard and the drift
The spirit we christen as 'man';
Through it do our eyes first behold
What the word of the Prophet foretold, --
Paradise, -- for't was there love began,"
Said Hassoun to Hassan.

Thus Hassan and Hassoun! --
Like a rune
You may hear them run on and run on,
Blithe Youth and Old Age that is wan,
Disputing from midnight till noon.
While each speaks, so solemn, his part,
What is love but the same in the heart,
Outlasting, an infinite span,
Both Hassoun and Hassan!





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