The Blind Widow

Untouched by delight and by meaner pain
Is the heart that loves fondly but loves in vain.
Only this care to its skirt may cling
dSTo joy may gladden, no sorrow sting.
If this world of ours were a sea of woes,
And the billows of wrath high as mountains rose,
They might roar about him and rage, but the hem
Of his garment would never be wetted by them.
If Fate spread a banquet of joy — a feast
Whose delight never ended and still increased —
He would turn away, for the dainties there
Would not lighten his load by a single hair.
A hapless bird was Zulaikha. She pined
In the narrow cage of the world confined.
Befriended by Fortune, in pride and power,
When a rose-bed bloomed in her secret bower ;
With her lord beside her to shade and screen
The tender plant when her bud was green —
With all dainty things, if she cared but to speak ;
When no lamp was so bright as her youthful cheek
Yusuf e’en then her whole heart possessed —
The sweet name on her lips, the dear hope in her breast.
Now, when from her side her protector was reft,
When naught of her rank and her treasures was left,
The sole friend of her heart, who ne’er changed his place,
Was the sweet remembrance of Yusuf’s face.
She thought of him ever ; her sad house seemed
Her dear fatherland when of him she dreamed.
No food could she eat, and she closed not her eyes ;
She wept tears of blood and she said with sighs : —
“ Beloved Yusuf, where, where art thou ?
Why false and faithless to' pledge and vow ?
Oh, that again those sweet hours I might see,
When one happy home held my love and me !
When no fear of parting could mar delight,
And I gazed on his beauty from morn till night.
When stern Fate robbed me of this sweet joy,
I sent to the prison that innocent boy.
Unseen by night to his presence I stole,
And the sight of his cheek -was as balm to my soul;
And a glance at the walls where my darling lay
Bubbed the rust of grief from my heart by day.
No joy is now left me, no solace like these ;
My heart and frame perish of pain and disease.
All I have left is the image which still.
Where’er I may be, this sad bosom must fill
The soul of this frame is that image, and I,
Bereft of its presence, should languish and die.”
Then her breast and her heart she would fiercely tear,
And engrave the form of her darling there.
She would strike her soft knee with her hand till the blue
Of the lotus supplanted the jasmine’s hue.
“ I am worthy the love of my love,” she would cry,
“ For my love is the sun and the lotus am T.
As my love is the lord of the east and the west,
The place of the lotus for me is the best.”
She would strike her heart’s fir-cone again and again
With closed fingers knotted like sugar-cane.
And her hand — no picture could match its grace —
Left on her bosom a blood-red trace.
For a reed each bleeding finger she took.
And, white as pure camphor, her hand was a book;
But the only word she could write therein
Was the syllable grief on the silver skin ;
And ah, her beloved would read or note
No single line of the word she wrote.
Long years of sorrow, each like the last,
In hopeless yearning alone she passed.
White, white as milk grew each plaited tress,
And dark was the light of her loveliness.
The musk had departed, the camphor was there,
And the grey dawn had banished the night of her hair.
From the arrow of Fate had the raven fled,
And the owlet lodged in the nest instead ;
Lives any so old who can call to mind
Owls keeping a nest by the ravens resigned ?
In her eye’s narcissus the jasmine grew :
Tears had washed from her eyelid its jetty hue.
Black in the days of her joy was that eye
Which looked delighted on earth and sky.
Why, when her hope and her heart had failed,
And her joy passed away, was the blackness paled ?
From Hindustan had she learned to wear
Nothing but white in her woe and despair ?
With wrinkles the bloom of her cheek was marred,
And the leaves of the wild-rose were withered and scarred ;
Each line that in blandishment once lent a grace
To her delicate brow now disfigured her face.
In this ancient world who ever has known
The smooth water lined when no breeze has blown ?
But there ever were wrinkles and lines to deform
Her face’s soft splendour in calm or in storm.
Grief had bent down the cypress once stately and proud,
And her head like a ring to her foot was bowed —
Weighed down by its burthen it lay on her feet,
Like a ring on the door where the happy ones meet.
When no longer the blessing of sight remained
On this earth with the blood of the dead distained,
She bowed down her back and she bent her head,
As if seeking the treasure which long had fled.
Slowly and sadly the years came round:
Her foot was unringed and her head uncrowned.
There gleamed on her shoulder no satin’s sheen,
No precious gems in her ears were seen.
On her neck was no collar of costly stone ;
Isfo gold-wrought veil o’er her cheek was thrown.
On the cold bare earth for a bed she lay,
And the cheek once so dainty was pillowed on clay.
Ah, earth, with his love, were a pleasanter bed
Than a silken couch by a Houri spread !
Yes, a jewelled pillow from Paradise seemed
The brick under her cheek when of him she dreamed.
In this sorrow, of which but a part is sung '
In the vocal pearls which my pen has strung,
His name was all that her lips could speak,
The only comfort her soul might seek.
While yet she had treasures, a wealth untold
Of jewels and silver, of pearl and gold,
Her gold and silver she east at the feet
Of her who some tale of her love would repeat,
And her pearls and her jewels she gave to each
Who poured forth those jewels and pearls of speech ;
But her gold and silver, her pearls, and her vast
Treasure of jewels were spent at last.
With a woollen gown and a girdle rent
Prom the bark of the palm she was then content.
Then all on the knee of deep silence fell :
No more of Yusuf she heard them tell.
No longer came the sweet tidings to cheer
Her lonely heart through the path of her ear.
That this food of her life might he still supplied
She built her a but by the highway side,
That her ear might catch — and the hope was sweet —
The measured tread of his escort’s feet.
Ah, poor, unhappy, deserted soul.
Prom whose hand has fallen the rein of control !
From the love of her darling by Fate debarred,
The voice of her longing was tuneless and hard.
No breath from her love might be wafted to her,
No tidings be learnt from a messenger.
Oft would she question the wind if it knew
Aught of her love, and the bird as it flew.
Whenever a traveller passed the place
"With the dust of the road on his weary face,
She would wash that brow, she would bathe those feet,
For they came from his home to her lone retreat.
If her lord and king by her cottage passed.
No look on his face had she power to cast.
Content with the sound of his horse’s tread.
And the dust of his path on her happy head.