Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night, Vol 8.djvu/93

81 child, and preluded in many different modes; then, returning to the first, she sang the following verses:

When Noureddin heard this, he looked on her with eyes of love and could scarce contain himself for the violence of his inclination to her; and on like wise was it with her, because she looked at the company who were present of the sons of the merchants and at Noureddin and saw that he was amongst the rest as the moon among stars; for that he was sweet of speech and full of amorous grace, perfect in beauty and brightness and loveliness and accomplished in symmetry, pure of all defect, blander than the zephyr and more delicate than Tesnim, as saith of him the poet:

By his cheeks’ unfading damask and his smiling teeth I swear, By the arrows that he feathers with the witchery of his air, By his sides so soft and tender and his glances bright and keen, By the whiteness of his forehead and the blackness of his hair, By his arched imperious eyebrows, chasing slumber from my lids With their yeas and noes that hold me ’twixt rejoicing and despair,

VOL. VIII.