And another, reclining on a couch buried in dusky silks, like a butterfly under the leaves, a soft ball of beauty, sang moaningly:
Here like a fruit on the branch am I swaying;
Snatch ere I fall, love! there's death in delaying.
And another, light as an antelope on the hills, with antelope eyes edged with kohl, and timid, graceful movements, and small, white, rounded ears, sang clearly:
Swiftness is mine, and I fly from the sordid;
Follow me, follow! and you'll be rewarded.
And another, with large limbs and massive mould, that stepped like a cow leisurely cropping the pasture, and shook with jewels amid her black hair and above her brown eyes, and round her white neck and her wrists, and on her waist, even to her ankle, sang as with a kiss upon every word:
Sweet 'tis in stillness and bliss to be basking!
He who would have me, may have for the asking.
And another, with eyebrows like a bow, and arrows of fire in her eyes, and two rosebuds her full moist parted pouting lips, sang, clasping her hands, and voiced like the tremulous passionate bulbul in the shadows of the moon:
Love is my life, and with love I live only;
Give me life, lover, and leave me not lonely.
And a seventh, a very beam of beauty, and the perfection of all that is imagined in fairness and ample grace of expression and proportion, lo! she came straight to Shibli Bagarag, and took him by the hand and pierced him with lightning glances, singing:
Were we not destined to meet by one planet?
Can a fate sever us?—can it, ah! can it?