And the tire which attires thy tiara'd brow ✿ Is a night of woe on a morn's glad light.
The fair young girl came down from the estrade and said to me, "Welcome and well come and good cheer to my sister, the dearly-beloved, the illustrious, and a thousand greetings!" Then she recited these couplets:—
An but the house could know who cometh 'twould rejoice, ✿ And kiss the very dust whereon thy foot was placed;
And with the tongue of circumstance the walls would say, ✿ "Welcome and hail to one with generous gifts engraced!"
Then sat she down and said to me, "O my sister, I have a brother who hath had sight of thee at sundry wedding-feasts and festive seasons: he is a youth handsomer than I, and he hath fallen desperately in love with thee, for that bounteous Destiny hath garnered in thee all beauty and perfection; and he hath given silver to this old woman that she might visit thee; and she hath contrived on this wise to foregather us twain. He hath heard that thou art one of the nobles of thy tribe nor is he aught less in his; and, being desirous to ally his lot with thy lot, he hath practised this device to bring me in company with thee; for he is fain to marry thee after the ordinance of Allah and his Apostle; and in what is lawful and right there is no shame." When I heard these words and saw myself fairly entrapped in the house, I said, "Hearing is consenting." She was delighted at this and clapped her hands;[[336]] whereupon a door opened and out of it came a young man blooming in the prime of life, exquisitely dressed, a model of beauty and loveliness and symmetry and perfect grace, with gentle winning manners and eyebrows like a bended bow and shaft on cord, and eyes which bewitched all hearts with sorcery lawful in the sight of the Lord; even as saith some rhymer describing the like of him:—
His face as the face of the young moon shines ✿ And Fortune stamps him with pearls for signs.[[337]]
And Allah favour him who said:—
Blest be his beauty; blest the Lord's decree ✿ Who cast and shaped a thing so bright of blee:
All gifts of beauty he conjoins in one; ✿ Lost in his love is all humanity;
For Beauty's self inscribed on his brow ✿ "I testify there be no Good but he!"[[338]]