Please note: I first published this book review on the “Goodreads”-website in 2023.
My rating: 3 (of 5) “stars
I bought a copy of this book online, I use AbeBooks and zvab.com to buy used/rare books.
I recently (note: March 2023) acquired a copy of a first edition of this book, published in 1918, and being able to hold and leaf through a first edition of any book adds immensly to the pleasure of reading said book.
This book contains love poems, translated into English by Edward Powys Mathers, from various Asian countries. They allow glimpses into different cultures, which I find very interesting.
I quite liked some of the poems, but I have to admit that the book doesn’t contain a single poem which I truly loved. My favourite is a very short poem, “Grief,” translated “from the Persian of Schahid (10th Century)”, p.41: “If grief like fire should give out smoke / Ever it would be night on earth.
Update March 2024: I recently learned that Mathers wrote a few original poems for this book, which he published anonymously under fake names. In the book, he claims that they are all original Asiatic Love Poems, and he only translated them. I love the fact that Powers snuck a few original poems into this collection of poems by other authors.