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The night of estrangement, how longsome was it! Its first and its last, one with other, were knit,
As a ring, sans beginning or ending to wit, And the Day of Uprising broke, ere it would flit;
For estrangement, thereafter,[1] the lover is dead.
As they were in this great delight and engrossing joy, they heard one of the servants of the Saint[2] smite the gong[3] upon the roof, to call the folk to the rites of their worship, and he was even as saith the poet:
Then she rose forthwith and donned her clothes and ornaments: but this was grievous to Noureddin, and his gladness was troubled; the tears streamed from his eyes and he recited the following verses:
The rose of a soft cheek, all through the livelong night, I stinted not to kiss and bite with many a bite,
Till, in our middle tide of pleasure, when our spy Lay down to rest, with eyes in slumber closed outright,
They smote the gongs, as they who smote upon them were Muezzins that to prayer the faithful do invite.
She rose from me in haste and donned her clothes, for fear Our watcher’s darted star[6] should on our heads alight,
- ↑ i.e. after the rising up of the dead.
- ↑ i.e. the Virgin.
- ↑ Nacous, a rude kind of wooden gong used by Eastern Christians to summon the congregation to divine service, the use of bells being forbidden in Muslim countries.
- ↑ i.e. a graceful, slender youth.
- ↑ A play upon words, the phrase Dsereb en nawakisi, “the smiting of the gongs,” by cutting the last word in two, becoming Dsereb en nawa: kisi, “the giving of the signal for departure: decide thou.”
- ↑ Likening the spy to the angel guardians of heaven, whose missiles, launched at the Jinn who seek to pry into the secret counsels of heaven, the Muslims suppose the shooting-stars to be.
