With bitter reproaches upon the captive pigeon who had thus lured him to destruction, he trembled and struggled, until he broke the decayed net, and turned his tired face toward the home-nest, and flew as rapidly as his forlorn condition would permit. Fearing to attempt again to satisfy his hunger, he was nevertheless compelled to rest, at last, on a wall near a field of corn. A thoughtless boy sent an arrow toward him, and wounded he fell, but he lay so quietly that the young hunter failed to find his game, and at last, weak and wounded, hungry and discouraged, he fluttered by short flights homeward. Nawāzindah heard the flutter of his wings, and flew joyously out to meet him saying:
“’Tis I whose eyes expand, my love to find—
How shall I thank thee—thou so true and kind.”
But when she had caressed him, she saw that he was weak and thin, and she exclaimed, “Oh, beloved, where hast thou been?”
Bāzindah replied:
“Ask me not what woes, my love,—
What pangs have been my lot,
All the grief that parting brings,
I’ve tasted—ask me not.
For travel’s conflict I’ll not lust again,