The best way to write a ghazal in English is, in my opinion, to look at the one by James Elroy Flecker and copy his method. I realise it is not exactly what a Persian one would be like, but we are writing in English, after all. Here it is:
Yasmin
(A Ghazel)
How splendid in the morning grows the lily: with what grace he throws
His supplication to the rose: do roses nod the head, Yasmin?
But when the silver dove descends I find the little flower of friends
Whose very name that sweetly ends I say when I have said, Yasmin.
The morning light is clear and cold: I dare not in that light behold
A whiter light, a deeper gold, a glory too far shed, Yasmin.
But when the deep red light of day is level with the lone highway,
And some to Meccah turn to pray, and I toward thy bed, Yasmin;
Or when the wind beneath the moon in drifting like a soul aswoon,
And harping planets talk love's tune with milky wings outspread, Yasmin,
Shower down thy love, O burning bright! For one night or the other night,
Will come the Gardener in white, and gathered flowers are dead, Yasmin.
James Elroy Flecker
Lord, I wish I had written that! Richard Burtyon reads it on You Tube.
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