Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 8.djvu/52

40 down in a swoon. When he came to himself, he recited the following verses:

When he had made an end of these verses, he heard a raven croak beside the house and wept, saying, ‘Glory be to God! The raven croaks not save over a ruined house.’ Then he sighed and groaned and recited the following verses:

Now Zein el Mewasif had a sister, by name Nesim, who was looking on him from a high place; and when she saw him in this plight, she wept and sighed and recited these verses:

Harkye! How oft, bewailing the steads, wilt come and go? Indeed, the house its builder bemoaneth, of its woe. Gladness, ere they departed who did inhabit here, Was rife within the dwelling and suns in it did glow. Where are the full moons vanished, that shone so bright? The shifts Of fate their lucent beauties have blotted out, I trow