Desire I suffer sore and melancholy deep, ✿ And I must bide a prey to endless phrenesy:
I find me ne'er a friend who looks with piteous eye, ✿ And seeks my presence to allay my misery:
Say, liveth any intimate with trusty love ✿ Who for mine ills will groan, my sleepless malady?
To whom moan I can make and, peradventure, he ✿ Shall pity eyes that sight of sleep can never see?
The flea and bug suck up my blood, as wight that drinks ✿ Wine from the proffering hand of fair virginity:
Amid the lice my body aye remindeth me ✿ Of orphan's good in Kázi's claw of villainy:
My home's a sepulchre that measures cubits three, ✿ Where pass I morn and eve in chainèd agony:
My wines are tears, my clank of chains takes music's stead; ✿ Cares my dessert of fruit and sorrows are my bed.
And when he had versed his verse and had prosed his prose, he again groaned and complained and remembered what he had been and how he had been parted from his brother. Thus far concerning him; but as regards his brother Amjad, he awaited As'ad till mid-day yet he returned not to him: whereupon Amjad's vitals fluttered, the pangs of parting were sore upon him and he poured forth abundant tears,——And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.
Now when it was the Two Hundred and Thirtieth Night,