Sympathy

Thus will the singer who sings the song
The pleasant course of his tale prolong.
Pain and hunger and wild unrest
Tortured the heart in Zulaikha’s breast.
Patience fled and left woe behind,
Soul and body no rest could find.
On no household care could she fix her thought,
And without the house she was pleased with naught.
Out and in ever she went and came,
Her eyes full of water, her heart aflame.
The nurse addressed her : “ Beloved moon.
Eclipsing the light of the sun at noon,
From the malice of Fate may thy life be free,
And never may Heaven be wroth with thee.
What has come o’er thee, I fain would know,
That thy soul is drowned in a sea of woe.
Thou art like a leaf, not a moment still,
Which the west wind blows wheresoever it will.
On its back, on its face, for a moment it lies,
And this way and that way it restlessly flies.
Ever delighting in change of place,
Backward and forward it loves to race.
Tell me what troubles thy rest, and who
Has brought a grief to thy soul anew.”
“ I know not,” she answered ; “ I cannot say
Why my thoughts are troubled, my senses astray.
I know that I suffer, but know not why
These sorrows sore on my spirit lie.
Some hidden grief on my bosom preys,
And darkens with anguish the light of my days.
I am like the soil of the earth : naught breaks
The calm of its rest till the whirlwind wakes.
It is tossed about by the blast, but knows
Naught of the source whence the storm arose.”
Since Yusuf came to Zulaikha, they
Were ever together by night and day.
One eve he opened his lips to disclose
His mournful story of many woes.
He told the tale as it all befell,
And spoke of his prison, that noisome well.
Soon as the words from his lips she heard,
The answering choixls of remembrance stirred.
That selfsame day she remembered, she felt
The heart in her bosom with anguish melt,
And when the past months had been reckoned, she ki
That the swift surmise of her soul was true.
Yes, the heart that is watchful will never deny
That from soul to soul a swift message may fly ;
And chief from the soul of the lover, who
To his own fond darling is faithful and true,
There lies a clear path, and where’er he may be,
The steps of his loved one he still may see.
Still to his eye and his heart he will feel
A ray from the light of her beauty steal.
If a thorn wound the foot of his darling, the heart
Of the faithful lover will feel the smart.
If the zephyr play with her tangled hair,
There is doubt in his bosom and anxious care.
If a grain of dust on her dear cheek rest,
His back is bent with its weight oppressed.
I have heard the story how Laila, fain
With the point of a lancet to open a vein,
Touched with the steel her soft skin, and blood
Burst from the hand of Majim in a flood.
Come, Jami, from dreams of thyself forbear ;
Take for thy being no thought or care.
God is the giver of power and sense :
If fame be thine, thou hast gained it thence.
Be pure from self-love and its hate and fear,
And let thy soul's mirror be bright. and clear.
Then the light of the beauty we may not see,
As it gleamed on Musa will gleam on thee.
When thy soul is illumed with this light from above,
Thou wilt know the lore of eternal love.