Lailī looked up to the face of the moon, and thought of its chilling rays that fell upon the haggard form of her desert love. She gazed upon the flashing star that stood like a guardian above his restless sleep, and then she turned to receive the messengers who brought the formal tale that her jailor now was dead. And must she mourn for the man she loathed? Ah, yes; the Arab law must be obeyed, and she must assume the garments of woe! It was easy for her to weep,
“But all the burning tears she shed
Were for Majnūn, not the dead.’”
The days went by with weary feet, and the night still looked upon a lonely heart, for the Arab law maintained that years must pass before one breath of freedom could be given to the woman in the rock-bound tower. But Lailī arose one morn with a new light in her dark eyes, and called her faithful Zyd, the boy who had long served his gentle lady, and to whom her word was the law supreme. To him she said:
“To-day is not the day of hope,
Which only gives to fancy scope;
It is the day our hopes completing,
It is the lover’s day of meeting!
Rise up! the world is full of joy;
Rise up! and serve thy mistress, boy;