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Sleep hath my lids departed, but wake is ever nigh And of the hoarded teardrops still lavish is mine eye.
It weepeth tears like rubies, for love, and evermore With growing distance waxeth the tide of tears more high.
Longing within my bosom, beloved mine, hath lit A fire that rageth ever and will not cease or die.
No tear, when I recall thee, I shed, but still therein Is lightning, ay, and thunder of many a groan and sigh.
Then he wept till he fainted away a fourth time, and presently recovering, recited the following lines:
Do ye for passion and distress e’en suffer as we do? And is the love of us with you, like to our love for you?
May Allah love-liking confound! How bitter ’tis, indeed! What is it love would have of us? Ah, would to God I knew!
Your lovely faces, far and wide though distance ’twixt us stretch, Still in our eyes, where’er we are, are mirrored, clear and true.
With memories of your dwelling-place my heart is occupied And still the turtle, when she sings, my trouble doth renew.
O dove, that callest all the night upon thy mate, with me Thou mak’st grief company and add’st longing my longing to.
Thou leav’st my lids unsatisfied with weeping and lament For dear ones gone and far away, departed from our view.
Yea, every time and tide for them I yearn and am consumed With longing, when on me the night falls with its darkling hue.
When his sisters heard this and saw his condition, the transport of love and longing and the passion and distraction that possessed him were manifest to them and they questioned him of his case. He wept and told them what had befallen in his absence and how his wife had taken flight with her children, wherefore they grieved for him and asked him what she said at leave-taking. ‘O my sisters,’ answered he, ‘she said to my mother, “Tell thy son, when he cometh and the nights of separation are long upon him and he craveth reunion with me and meeting and the winds of love and longing agitate him,
