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followed the foot-marks, till they brought him to a surging sea, swollen with clashing billows. The trail led down to the water’s edge and there broke off; whereby he knew that they had taken ship there and had continued their journey by sea. So he lost hope of finding his beloved and repeated the following verses, weeping sore:
Far’s the place of visitation and my patience faileth me For my love; but how to reach her o’er the abysses of the sea?
When, for love of her, my vitals are consumed and I’ve forsworn Slumber, sleep for wake exchanging, ah, how can I patient be?
Since the day she left the homesteads and departed, hath my heart Burnt with never-ceasing anguish, all a-fire with agony.
Oxus and Jaxartes, running like Euphrates, are my tears; More than rain and flood abounding, run like rivers to the sea.
Ulcerated are my eyelids with the running of the tears, And my heart on fires of passion’s burnt and wasted utterly.
Yea, the armies of my longing and my transport on me pressed, And the hosts of my endurance did before them break and flee.
Lavishly my life I’ve ventured for the love of her; for life Is the lightest to a lover of all ventures, verily.
Be an eye of God unpunished that beheld the beauteous one, Than the moon how much more splendid, in the harem’s sanctuary!
Struck was I and smitten prostrate by wide-opened eyes, whose shafts, From a bow all stringless loosened, pierced the hapless heart of me.
By the soft and flexile motions of her shape she captived me, Swaying as the limber branches sway upon the cassia-tree.
Union with her I covet, that therewith I may apply Solace to the pains of passion, love and care and misery.
For the love of her, afflicted, as I am, I have become; All that’s fallen on me betided from the evil eye, perdie.
Then he wept, till he swooned away, and abode in his swoon a long while. When he came to himself, he looked right and left and seeing none in the desert, was fearful of the wild beasts; so he climbed to the top of a high mountain, where he heard a man’s voice speaking within a cavern. He listened and found it to be that of a devotee, who had forsworn the world and given himself up to pious exercises. So he knocked thrice at
