Do thou not his wish deny.
Alas! Did not estrangement
Draw my tears, I would not sigh.”
I must translate a few more lines, to show more strongly the similarity of these songs to that of Solomon; and lest it should be thought that I have varied the expressions, I shall not attempt to render them into verse. In the same collection of poems sung at zikrs is one which begins with these lines:—
“O gazelle from among the gazelles of El-Yemen!
I am thy slave without cost:
O thou small of age, and fresh of skin!
O thou who art scarce past the time of drinking milk!”
In the first of these verses we have a comparison exactly agreeing with that in the concluding verse of Solomon’s Song; for the word which, in our Bible, is translated a “roe,” is used in Arabic as synonymous with “ghazál” (or a gazelle); and the mountains of El-Yemen are “the mountains of spices.”—This poem ends with the following lines:—
“The phantom of thy form visited me in my slumber: