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straitened upon me, and of the excess of my passion, I go, saying:
My yearning o’er this stead’s eternal and my pain, And longings for its folk still wax on me amain.
I send to you my tale of love; the cupbearer Still giveth me the cup of love for you to drain.
And for your faring hence and absence from the lands, With ever-streaming tears my wounded eyelids rain.
O litter-leader, stay; turn back with the belov’d; For all my heart’s afire with flames that never wane.
My greeting to my love bear thou and say to her, “There’s nought but damask lips his sorrows can assain.
Time bore him off and rent his loves apart and cleft His entrails with a shaft of severance in twain.”
Give them to know of all my transport for their loss And what I bear for love and longing all in vain.
Yea, by the love of you, I swear I will fulfil The covenant of love, whatever Fate ordain.
I’ll never change nor yet forget your love: how shall Forgetfulness betide the wistful, longing swain?
Peace, salutation-wise, from me, with musk commixt In letters, be on you again and yet again!’
Nesim marvelled at his eloquence and the goodliness of his speech and the elegance of his verses and was moved to compassion for him. Then she sealed the letter with virgin musk and incensed it with aloes-wood and ambergris, after which she committed it to a merchant, bidding him deliver it not save to Zein el Mewasif or her maid Huboub.
When the letter reached her sister, she knew it for Mesrour’s inditing and recognized himself in the grace of its expression. So she kissed it and laid it on her eyes, whilst the tears streamed from her lids and she gave not over weeping, till she fainted. When she came to herself, she called for pen and paper Night dccclvii.and wrote him the following answer: ‘This letter is to my lord and
