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And as saith yet another and saith well:
Mine eyes have not looked on the like of the almond For beauty, with blossoms in spring-time bedight.
Whilst the down on its cheek in the leaf-time yet sprouteth, Its head is already for hoariness white.
And jujube-plums of various colours, growing singly and in clusters, whereof saith one, describing them:
Look at the jujube-plums, upon the branches all arrayed, Like wonder-goodly apricots [to dry] on osiers laid.[1]
Such is their brightness that they seem, to the beholders’ eyes, As cascabels of gold they were, of purest bullion made.
And as saith another and saith well:
The lote-tree doth itself array In some fresh beauty every day.
’Tis as the fruit upon it were (And th’ eye so deems it, sooth to say,)
Hawks’ bells of vegetable gold That swing from every branch and spray.
And [blood] oranges, as they were galingale,[2] whereof quoth the poet El Welhan:
Red oranges, that fill the hand, upon the boughs arow, Shining with loveliness; without they’re fire, within they’re snow.
Snow, for a marvel, melting not, though joined with fire it be, And fire that burns not, strange to say, for all its ruddy glow.
And quoth another and quoth well:
Trees of blood oranges, whose fruit, in beauty manifold, Unto his eye who draweth near, its brightness to behold,
Like unto women’s cheeks appears, who have adorned themselves And decked them out for festival in robes of cloth of gold.
- ↑ “La ville [El Aghouat] dort au-dessous de moi, avec ses terrasses vides, où le soleil éclaire une multitude de claies pleines de petits abricots roses, exposés la pour sécher.”—Eugène Fromentin, Un Été dans le Sahara, Paris, 1857, p. 194.
- ↑ Khulenjan. Sic all editions; but Khelenj, a dark sweet-scented wood, to which a blood-orange might fairly be likened, is probably intended as the object of comparison.
