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forbid!” said the merchant; “I will but look at her face.” Night lvii.Then he went up to her, confounded at her beauty and grace, and seating himself by her side, said to her, “O my mistress, what is thy name?” “Dost thou ask what is my name now,” said she, “or what it was formerly?” “Hast thou then two names?” asked the merchant. “Yes,” replied she, “my whilom name was Nuzhet ez Zeman;[1] but my name at this present is Ghusset ez Zeman.”[2] When the merchant heard this, his eyes filled with tears, and he said to her, “Hast thou not a sick brother?” “Indeed, my lord, I have,” answered she; “but fortune hath parted us, and he lies sick in Jerusalem.” The merchant’s heart was confounded at the sweetness of her speech, and he said to himself, “Verily, the Bedouin spoke the truth of her.” Then she called to mind her brother and how he lay sick in a strange land, whilst she was parted from him and knew not what was become of him; and she thought of all that had befallen her with the Bedouin and of her severance from her father and mother and native land; and the tears ran down her cheeks and she repeated the following verses:
May God keep watch o’er thee, belov’d, where’er thou art, Thou that, though far away, yet dwellest in my heart!
Where’er thy footsteps lead, may He be ever near, To guard thee from time’s shifts and evil fortune’s dart!
Thou’rt absent, and my eyes long ever for thy sight, And at thy thought the tears for aye unbidden start.
Would that I knew alas! what country holds thee now, In what abode thou dwell’st, unfriended and apart!
If thou, in the green o’ the rose, still drink o’ the water of life, My drink is nought but tears, since that thou didst depart.
If sleep e’er visit thee, live coals of my unrest, Strewn betwixt couch and side, for aye my slumbers thwart
All but thy loss to me were but a little thing, But that and that alone is sore to me, sweetheart.
