The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 09

To Alexander Baird of Urie.
My Dear Baird,
I avail my self of a privilege of authorship, not yet utterly obsolete, to place your name at the head of this volume. Your long residence in Egypt and your extensive acquaintance with its politic, private and public, make you a thouroughly competent judge of the merits and demerits of this volume; and encourage me to hope that in reading it you will take something of the pleasure I have had in writing it..
Ever yours sincerely,
Richard F. Burton.
Tangier, December 31, 1885.
When it was the Eight Hundred and Eighty-ninth Night,
When my blamer saw me beside my love Whom I met in a site that lay open wide, I spake not at meeting a word of reproach Though oft it comfort sad heart to chide; Quoth the blamer, 'What means this silence that bars Thy making answer that hits his pride?' And quoth I, 'O thou who as fool dost wake, To misdoubt of lovers and Love deride; The sign of lover whose love is true When he meets his belovиd is mum to bide.'
Came your writ to me in the dead of the night And desire for you stirrиd heart and sprite; And, remembered joys we in union joyed, Praised the Lord who placed us in parting plight.
When it was the Eight Hundred and Ninetieth Night,
Rosy red Wady hot with summer-glow, Where twofold tale of common growth was piled. In copse we halted wherein bent to us Branches, as bendeth nurse o'er weanling-child. And pure cold water quenching thirst we sipped: To cup-mate sweeter than old wine and mild: From every side it shut out sheen of sun Screen-like, but wooed the breeze to cool the wild: And pebbles, sweet as maidens deckt and dight And soft as threaded pearls, the touch beguiled.
And as saith another,