HASSAN
A sweet name for a moonlight night. Salaam aleikum.
PORTER
Ya Hawaja, v'aleikum assalam!
(The PORTER returns and shuts the gate.)
HASSAN (To himself) What if the Jews are an older race than we and know old forgotten secrets? Alas, I believe no more in these Israelitish sweets. Could those drops of purple liquid command the spirit of love? And yet, who can say? the young men of the market-place laugh at all enchantments—but do they know how to spin the sun? On a night like this, does not the very fountain sing in tune and enchant the dropping stones? Ah, Yasmin? (Taking a lute from beneath his cloak and a tuning it.) Yasmin…Yasmin…Yasmin…Yasmin.
(Intones to the accompaniment of the lute.)
How splendid in the morning glows the lily; with what grace he throws
His supplication to the rose: do roses nod the head, Yasmin?
But when the silver dove descends I find the little flower of friends,
Whose very name that sweetly ends, I say when I have said, Yasmin.
The morning light is clear and cold; I dare not in that light behold
A whiter light, a deeper gold, a glory too far shed, Yasmin.
But when the deep red eye of day is level with for the lone highway,
And some to Mecca turn to pray, and I toward thy bed, Yasmin,
Or when the wind beneath the moon is drifting like a soul aswoon,
And harping planets talk love's tune with milky wings outspread, Yasmin,
Shower down thy love, O burning bright! for one night or the other night
Will come the Gardener in white, and gathered flower are dead, Yasmin!
(As HASSAN intones the last "Yasmin" with passion the shutters open, and YASMIN, veiled, looks out.)
YASMIN
Alas, Minstrel, Yasmin is my name also, but it was for a fairer
Yasmin than me, I fear, you have strung these pearls.
HASSAN
There is no Yasmin but Yasmin, and you are Yasmin.
YASMIN
Can this be Hassan, the Confectioner?