Page:Arabian poetry for English readers.djvu/95

 17. "O Fatima!" said I, "away with so much coyness; and if thou hadst resolved to abandon me, yet at last relent!

18. "If indeed my disposition and manners are unpleasing to thee, rend at once the mantle of my heart, that it may be detached from thy love.

19. "Art thou so haughty, because my passion for thee destroys me; and because whatever thou commandest my heart performs?

20. "Thou weepest; yet thy tears flow merely to wound my heart with the shafts of thine eyes—my heart, already broken to pieces and agonizing."

21. Besides these, with many a spotless virgin, whose tent had not yet been frequented, have I held soft dalliance at perfect leisure.

22. To visit one of them, I passed the guards of her bower, and a hostile tribe, who would have been eager to proclaim my death.

23. It was the hour when the Pleiads appeared in the firmament, like the folds of a silken sash variously decked with gems.

24. I approached: she stood expecting me by the curtain; and, as if she was preparing for sleep, had put off all her vesture but her night-dress.

25. She said: "By Him who created me," and gave me her lovely hand, "I am unable to refuse thee; for I perceive that the blindness of thy passion is not to be removed."