71
And yet another:
The hills of oranges, what time the zephyrs o’er them glide And to their touch the branches bend and sway from side to side,
Are like to cheeks, wherein there glows the light of loveliness And to meet which come other cheeks at salutation-tide.
And a fourth:
One day of a young gazelle that he should praise Our garden and oranges we did require.
Quoth he, ‘Your garden to me is as my face, And whoso gathers its oranges gathers fire.’
And citrons, in colour as virgin gold, dropping from on high and dangling among the branches, as they were ingots of vegetable gold, as saith thereof the poet El Welhan:
Hast thou not seen a fruited wood of citrons, laden all So heavily that, when they bend, one feareth lest they fall?
When the breeze passed o’er them, as ’twere with ingots of pure gold It seemed the boughs were laden, cast in many a gleaming ball.
And shaddocks, that hung among their boughs, as they were the breasts of gazelle-like virgins, contenting the utmost of desire, as saith of them the poet and saith well:
A shaddock, midst the garden ways, I saw, its leaves between, On a fresh branch, as a maid’s shape with symmetry beseen.
When the wind bent it here and there, its fruits all rolled about, As balls of gold they were, at end of malls of beryl green.
And the lemon, sweet of savour, which resembles a hen’s egg, but yellowness is the ornament of its ripe fruit, and its fragrance heartens him who plucks it, as saith the poet of it:
Beholdst not the lemon, that, whenas on high It shineth, for brilliancy dazzles the eye?
Meseemeth as if ’twere a hen’s egg, indeed, That the hand of the huckster with saffron doth dye.
