When they to me had brought the leach (and surely showed ✿ The signs of flowing tears and pining malady),
The face-veil he withdrew from me, and ‘neath it naught ✿ Save breath of one unsouled, unbodied, could he see.
Quoth he, “This be a sickness Love alone shall cure; ✿ Love hath a secret from all guess of man wide free.”
Quoth they, “An folk ignore what here there be with him ✿ Nature of ill and eke its symptomology,”
How then shall medicine work a cure? At this quoth I ✿ “Leave me alone; I have no guessing specialty.”
And they tell a tale of
[490]. i.e. in spirit; the “strangers yet” of poor dear Richard Monckton Milnes, Lord Houghton.
[491]. Al-Hakk = the Truth, one of the ninety-nine names of Allah.
[492]. The Moslem is still unwilling to address Salám (Peace be with you) to the Christian, as it is obligatory (Farz) to a Moslem (Koran, chapt. iv. and lxviii.). He usually evades the difficulty by saluting the nearest Moslem or by a change of words Allah Yahdí-k (Allah direct thee to the right way) or “Peace be upon us and the righteous worshippers of Allah” (not you) or Al-Samm (for Salam) alayka = poison to thee. The idea is old: Alexander of Alexandria in his circular letter describes the Arian heretics as “men whom it is not lawful to salute or to bid God-speed.”