Page:Tales from the Arabic, Vol 3.djvu/136

118 When El Abbas heard her verses, they pleased him and he said to her, “Well done, O Sitt el Husn! Indeed, thou hast done away trouble from my heart and [banished] the things that had occurred to my mind.” Then he heaved a sigh and signing to the fifth damsel, who was from the land of the Persians and whose name was Merziyeh (now she was the fairest of them all and the sweetest of speech and she was like unto a splendid star, endowed with beauty and loveliness and brightness and perfection and justness of shape and symmetry and had a face like the new moon and eyes as they were gazelle’s eyes) and said to her, “O Merziyeh, come forward and tune thy lute and sing to us on the [same] subject, for indeed we are resolved upon departure to the land of Yemen.” Now this damsel had met many kings and had consorted with the great; so she tuned her lute and sang the following verses:

May the place of my session ne’er lack thee! Oh, why, My heart’s love, hast thou saddened my mind and mine eye? By thy ransom, who dwellest alone in my heart, In despair for the loss of the loved one am I. So, by Allah, O richest of all men in charms, Vouchsafe to a lover, who’s bankrupt well-nigh Of patience, thy whilom endearments again, That I never to any divulged, nor deny