Page:The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night - Volume 5.djvu/66

 he looked right and left and seeing no one in the desert, he became fearful of the wild beasts; so he clomb to the top of a high mountain, where he heard the voice of a son of Adam speaking within a cave. He listened and lo! they were the accents of a devotee, who had forsworn the world and given himself up to pious works and worship. He knocked thrice at the cavern-door, but the hermit made him no answer, neither came forth to him; wherefore he groaned aloud and recited these couplets.

"What pathway find I my desire t'obtain, *     How 'scape from care and cark and pain and bane?   All terrors join to make me old and hoar *     Of head and heart, ere youth from me is ta'en:   Nor find I any aid my passion, nor *     A friend to lighten load of bane and pain.   How great and many troubles I've endured! *     Fortune hath turned her back I see unfain.   Ah mercy, mercy on the lover's heart, *     Doomed cup of parting and desertion drain!   A fire is in his heart, his vitals waste, *     And severance made his reason vainest vain.   How dread the day I came to her abode *     And saw the writ they wrote on doorway lain!   I wept, till gave I earth to drink my grief; *     But still to near and far [FN#49] I did but feign:   Then strayed I till in waste a lion sprang *     On me, and but for flattering words had slain:   I soothed him: so he spared me and lent me aid, * He too might haply of love's taste complain. O devotee, that idlest in thy cave, * Meseems eke thou hast learned Love's might and main; But if, at end of woes, with them I league, * Straight I'll forget all suffering and fatigue."

Hardly had he made an end of these verses when, behold! the door of the cavern opened and he heard one say, "Alas, the pity of it!" [FN#50] So he entered and saluted the devotee, who returned his salam and asked him, "What is thy name?" Answered the young man, "Uns al-Wujud." "And what caused thee to come hither?" quoth the hermit. So he told him his story in its entirety, omitting naught of his misfortunes; whereat he wept and said, "