No. XV Translation of an Extempore Arab Song
“Oh! she was beauty’s self, and shone in matchless symmetry! When shall I hear news of her? how support her absence, and her loss? My hopes are but as the fantastic dreams of night; yet with this hopelessness my love does but increase, even as a star shines the brightest in the blackest night. O! Mabrooka! thy head sinks too with sorrow at losing him, whose thoughts are still of thee; but as the desert bird79 drops and smooths its wing, but to display the richness of its plumage, so will thy silent grief but cause thee to appear with increased charms! Vain and cruel delusion! At the moment of the possession of earthly happiness to doom us to melancholy despair, was as if the traveller should draw water to the brink of the well, and then see the wished-for draught snatched from his thirsty lips!
“What she looks upon becomes graceful, enchanted by her loveliness! Oh! she is beauty’s self, my polar star80 of life.”
Footnotes
79Ostrich.
80The word in the original is jiddie, which guides the kafila in traversing the deserts, their track generally lying either north or south.
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