Poetry Codex

Turkish & Ottoman

Bâqî

1526–1600

Bâqî, whose full name was Mahmud 'Abdu-'l-Baqi, is, by the unanimous verdict of the Ottoman critics Gibb cites, the greatest lyric poet the Ottoman nation has produced; he was born in Constantinople in 1526.

The poems here are taken from E. J. W. Gibb's Ottoman Poems (1882), the first English verse translations of Ottoman poetry; dates and biographical details follow Gibb's Biographical Notices.

Poems (13)

  1. One Night When All the Battlements Heaven's Castle
  2. 'Tis Love's Wild Sea
  3. Years Trodden Under Foot Have I Lain
  4. With Her Graceful-Moving Form
  5. Before Thy Form
  6. Thy Cheek, Like Limpid Water
  7. All Sick the Heart with Love for Her
  8. Lo, Ne'er a Trace or Sign of Springtide's
  9. Tulip-Cheeked Ones Over Rosy Field and Plain Stray
  10. From Thine Own Beauty's Radiant Sun Doth Light
  11. The Goblet as Affliction's Khusrev's Bright Keyâni Crown
  12. When the Sheets Have Yonder Torment to Their
  13. O Thou! Fool-Bounden in the Mesh of Fame

See Bâqî in the full archive →