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plexion and his cheek as her cheek!’ At this Kemerezzeman opened his eyes and gave ear to his speech; and when Merzewan saw him listening, he repeated the following verses:
I see thee full of song and plaint and ecstasy amain, And to the setting forth in words of charms I find thee fain.
Can it be love hath wounded thee or art thou shot with shafts? For sure these fashions but belong unto a smitten swain.
Ho, pour me out full cups of wine and sing me eke, in praise Of Tenam, Suleyma, Rebāb,[1] a glad and lovesome strain!
Yea, let the grape-vine’s sun[2] go round, whose mansion is its jar, Whose East the cupbearer and West my thirsty mouth I feign.
I’m jealous of the very clothes she dights upon her side, For that upon her body soft and delicate they’ve lain;
And eke I’m envious of the cups that touch her dainty lips, When to the kissing-place she sets them ever and again.
Think not that I in anywise with sword am done to death; ’Tis by the arrows of a glance, alack! that I am slain.
Whenas we met again, I found her fingers dyed with red, As ’twere the juice of tragacanth had steeped them in its stain.
Said I to her, “Thou’st dyed thy palms,[3] whilst I was far away. This then is how the slave of love is ’quited for his pain.”
Quoth she (and cast into my heart the flaming fires of love, Speaking as one who hath no care love’s secret to contain),
“No, by thy life, this is no dye I’ve used! So haste thou not To heap accusings on my head and slander me in vain.
For, when I saw thee get thee gone upon our parting day, My eyes, for very dreariment, with tears of blood did rain.
I wiped them with my hand, and so my fingers with my blood Were all to-reddened and do yet their ruddy tint retain.”
Had I for very passion wept, or e’er my mistress did, I should, before repentance came, have solaced heart and brain;
But she before my weeping wept; her tears drew mine and so Quoth I, “Unto the precedent the merit doth pertain.”
Chide not at me for loving her, for by Love’s self I swear, My heart with anguish for her sake is well-nigh cleft in twain.
