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Night dccclv When Zein el Mewasif heard this, she knew that it was Mesrour and wept, she and her maidens, and said to him, ‘I conjure thee by Allah, O Mesrour, turn back, lest my husband see us!’ At these words he swooned away; and when he revived, they took leave of each other and he recited the following verses:
The chief of the caravan to depart calls loud and high, In the darkness ere the dawn, and the zephyr wafts the cry.
They gird their burdens on and hasten to depart, And on, at the leader’s voice, the caravan doth hie.
They perfume the lands, through which they journey, on every side, And still through the valley’s midst their travel in haste they ply.
Possession they took of my soul in passion and fared away And left me to toil in vain in the track of their passing by.
Beloved, I purposed indeed to part with you never in life And the earth is drenched with the tears that flow from the wanderer’s eye.
Alack! How hath parting’s hand with mine entrails wroughten! Woe’s me For my heart! Since my loves are gone, it irketh me like to die.
Then he clung to the litter, weeping and lamenting, whilst she besought him to turn back ere morning, for fear of discovery. So he came up to her and bidding her farewell a second time, fell down in a swoon. He lay a great while without life, and when he came to himself, he found the caravan out of sight. So he turned in the direction of their travel and inhaled the breeze that blew from their quarter, chanting the following verses:
No wind of nearness to the lover’s blown But of the pains of longing he makes moan.
The breeze of dawning blows on him; he wakes And in the world he finds himself alone.
Blood, mingled with his streaming tears, he weeps, For languor on the bed of sickness prone;
For loved ones lost he weeps; his heart with them Fares midst the camels over sand and stone.
