Love’s Longing

Night, the 'black raven, Had flown away,
And the cock crew loud at the dawn of day.
The voice of the bulbul to song addressed,
Brew the veil of her leaves from the rose’s breast.
With the tears of morning the jasmine was wet.
And dew gemmed the bud of the violet.
Zulaikha still lay motionless there.
Her heart turned to that night as we turn for prayer.
But no sweet slumber now held her fast,
But the senseless swoon of the night that had passed.
Her maidens kissed her soft hand, and round
Her couch their foreheads were pressed to the ground.
Then the veil from the dew-sprent tulip she raised,
And with weary eyes round the chamber gazed.
Like a fair .young sun or a moon her face
Shone forth from her collar, its rising-place.
No sign of that youth could her eye behold,
And she shrank as a soft flower shrinks in the cold.
She thought of that cypress in longing grief
And would rend her robe as the rose her leaf.
But the maiden’s hand was by shame restrained,
And her foot ’neath the mantle of patience retained,
And her secret love she still kept unknown
Like the ruby that sleeps in the heart of the stone,
Her bosom bled, but no drop might show
The cause of the wound and her bitter woe.
With her waiting-maids she would talk and smile,
But her soul was heavy with grief the while.
Her lips of sugar would. laugh, but pain
Knotted her heart like the sugar-cane.
Gay was her tongue with the tale and jest,
But the tongues of love’s flame flickered fierce in her breast.
On the forms of her maidens her eye she east,
But her heart was bound to the loved one fast.
Her soul’s rein had slipped from the hand of her will,
"For where’er she might be she was with him still.
Tis vain for the poor heart to struggle while
Love holds it with teeth of the crocodile.
No wish had she now, not a thought save for one;
Save .in him no rest and no comfort, none.
If she spoke, his image prompted the word;
If she wished, he only her bosom stirred.
Often her soul had near passed away
Ere the sweet night ended her weary day —
plight, the dear friend of all lovers ; night,
Who hides their secrets that fear the light —
Night, the meet theme of the lover’s praise,
Who drops the kind veil which the morn would raise.
Then she turned her face to the wall of lament,
And her back was curved as a harp is bent.
The strings of that harp were the streams from her eyes,
And its voice was the tune of her ceaseless sighs.
From the depths of her soul the wild music rose,
And its treble and bass were the tale of her woes.
The loved one’s image in sight she kept,
And uttered these pearls with the pearls she wept :
" Purest of gems, from what mine art thou
For whom I am weeping these tear-gems now ?
Thou art gone from my sight with the heart thou hast snared,
But thy name and thy home thou hast not declared.
Of whom shall I ask ? To whom shall I turn,
Thy name and the place where thou dwellest to learn ?
Art thou a king, by what name art thou known ?
A moon ? — with what stars is thy heavenly throne ?
Ah, ne’er may a maiden be captured like me !
I am robbed of my heart and the robber goes free.
I saw thine image ; it stole my sleep ;
And now blood from mine eyes and my heart weep.
Sleepless for ever my body must be,
For ray heart is on fire with the love of thee.
I was a rose in youth’s garden ; there
Like the Water of Life I was fresh and fair.
No breeze might roughly visit my head,
And my delicate foot on no thorn might tread.
With one glance thou hast thrown to the winds my rest,
And a thousand thorns my pillow infest.
On a thorny bed there is little repose
Lor a frame that is soft as the leaf of a rose.”
Thus in wailing and wild lament
Lor the vanished image her night was spent.
When the flush of morning was near, to hide
All traces of sorrow her eyes she dried.
Her cypress form on her bed she throw.
And the pillow was bright with the rose’s hue.
But the wounds of her teeth were visible yet
On the lips where her sorrow-parched tongue was set.
Thus unchanging, by night and by day,
The hours of Zulaikha passed sadly away.