Amid the roses which with varied hues ✿ Are to the myrtle-bush[[203]] a mere despair.
When she had finished her verse; I took the lute from her hands and, playing a quaint and no vulgar prelude sang the following verses:—
Laud to my Lord who gave thee all of loveliness; ✿ Myself amid thy thralls I willingly confess:
O thou, whose eyes and glances captivate mankind, ✿ Pray that I ‘scape those arrows shot with all thy stress!
Two hostile rivals water and enflaming fire ✿ Thy cheek hath married, which for marvel I profess:
Thou art Sa’ír in heart of me and eke Na’ím;[[204]] ✿ Thou agro-dolce, eke heart’s sweetest bitterness.
When she heard this my song she rejoiced with exceeding joy; then, dismissing her slave-women, she brought me to a most goodly place, where they had spread us a bed of various colours. She did off her clothes and I had a lover’s privacy of her and found her a pearl unpierced and a filly unridden. So I rejoiced in her and never in my born days spent I a more delicious night.——And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased saying her permitted say.
Now when it was the Two Hundred and Ninety-second Night,
She said, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that Mohammed bin Ali the Jeweller continued:—So I went in unto the Lady Dunya, daughter of Yahya bin Khalid the Barmecide, and I found her a pearl unthridden and a filly unridden. So I rejoiced in her and repeated these couplets:—
O Night here stay! I want no morning light; ✿ My lover’s face to me is lamp and light:[[205]]