And body clad, by loving pine and pain, ✿ In shirt of leanness, and worn down to thread,
To thee complain I of Love's tormentry, ✿ Which ousted hapless Patience from her stead:
A toi! show favour and some mercy deign, ✿ For Passion's cruel hands my vitals shred.
And beneath his lines he wrote these cadenced sentences, "The heart's pain is removed ✿ by union with the beloved ✿ and whomso his lover paineth ✿ only Allah assaineth! ✿ If we or you have wrought deceit ✿ may the deceiver win defeat! ✿ There is naught goodlier than a lover who keeps faith ✿ with the beloved who works him scathe." Then, by way of subscription, he wrote, "From the distracted and despairing man ✿ whom love and longing trepan ✿ from the lover under passion's ban ✿ the prisoner of transport and distraction ✿ from this Kamar al-Zaman ✿ son of Shahriman ✿ to the peerless one ✿ of the fair Houris the pearl-union ✿ to the Lady Budur ✿ daughter of King Al-Ghayur ✿ Know thou that by night I am sleepless ✿ and by day in distress ✿ consumed with increasing wasting and pain ✿ and longing and love unfain ✿ abounding in sighs ✿ with tear-flooded eyes ✿ by passion captive ta'en ✿ of Desire the slain ✿ with heart seared by the parting of us twain ✿ the debtor of longing-bane, of sickness cup-companion ✿ I am the sleepless one, who never closeth eye ✿ the slave of love, whose tears run never dry ✿ for the fire of my heart is still burning ✿ and never hidden is the flame of my yearning." Then on the margin Kamar al-Zaman wrote this admired verse:—
Salam from graces hoarded by my Lord ✿ To her, who holds my heart and soul in hoard!
And also these:—
Pray'ee grant me some words from your lips, belike ✿ Such mercy may comfort and cool these eyne:
From the stress of my love and my pine for you, ✿ I make light of what makes me despised, indign:
Allah guard a folk whose abode was far, ✿ And whose secret I kept in the holiest shrine:
Now Fortune in kindness hath favoured me ✿ Thrown on threshold dust of this love o' mine: