as I could run, and to-day, knowing that I have awoke tired and cannot run, he flieth after the measure of my faring. By Allah, this is wonderful! But I must needs follow this bird whether it lead me to death or to life; and I will go wherever it goeth, for at all events it will not abide save in some inhabited land. [1] So he continued to follow the bird which roosted every night upon a tree; and he ceased not pursuing it for a space of ten days, feeding on the fruits of the earth and drinking of its waters. At the end of this time, he came in sight of an inhabited city, whereupon the bird darted off like the glance of the eye and, entering the town, disappeared from Kamar al-Zaman, who knew not what it meant or whither it was gone; so he marvelled at this and exclaimed, "Praise be to Allah who hath brought me in safety to this city!" Then he sat down by a stream and washed his hands and feet and face and rested awhile; and, recalling his late easy and pleasant life of union with his beloved and contrasting it with his present plight of trouble and fatigue and distress and strangerhood and famine and severance, the tears streamed from his eyes and he began repeating these cinquains,
"Pain had I hid thy handwork, but it showed, * Changed sleep for wake, and wake with me abode:
When thou didst spurn my heart I cried aloud * Pate, hold thy hand and cease to gird and goad:
In dole and danger aye my sprite I spy!
An but the Lord of Love were just to me, * Sleep fro' my eyelids ne'er were forced to flee.
Pity, my lady, one for love o' thee * Prom his tribes darling brought to low degree:
Love came and doomed Wealth beggar-death to die.
The railers chide at thee: I ne'er gainsay, * But stop my ears and dumbly sign them Nay:
'Thou lov'st a slender may,' say they; I say, * 'I've picked her out and cast the rest away:'
Enough; when Fate descends she blinds man's eye!" [2]
- ↑ Ubi aves ibi angel). All African travellers know that a few birds flying about the bush, and a few palm-trees waving in the wind, denote the neighbourhood of a village or a camp (where angels are scarce). The reason is not any friendship for man but because food, animal and vegetable, is more plentiful Hence Albatrosses, Mother Carey's (Mater Cara, the Virgin) chickens, and Cape pigeons follow ships.
- ↑ The stanza is called Al-Mukhammas=cinquains; the quatrains and the "bob," or "burden" always preserve the same consonance. It ends with a Koranic lieu commun of Moslem morality.
