From off her dark-red damask lips the dew I wont to sip ✿ The fine old wine that seemed to reek of musk’s perfumery.
I wondered at the wondrous things between us done in dreams, ✿ And won my wish and all my will of things I hoped to see;
And from that dreamery I rose, yet ne’er could hope to find ✿ Trace of my phantom save my pain and fiery misery:
And when I looked on her a-morn, ’twas as a lover mad ✿ And every eve was drunken yet no wine brought jollity.
O breathings of the northern breeze, by Allah fro’ me bear ✿ Them-wards the greetings of my love and best salams that be:
Say them, “The wight with whom ye made that plight of fealty ✿ Time with his changes made him drain Death’s cup and slain is he!”
Then he went out and ceased not to weep till he came to her house and looking on it, saw it empty and void. Presently, it seemed to him he beheld her form before him, whereupon fires flamed in him and his griefs redoubled and he fell down a-swoon;——And Shahrazad perceived the dawn of day and ceased to say her permitted say.
Now when it was the Eight Hundred and Fifty-sixth Night,
She continued, It hath reached me, O auspicious King, that when Masrur saw the vision of Zayn al-Mawasif and felt her embrace, he joyed with passing joy. As soon as he awoke he sought her house, but finding it empty and void he fell down a-swoon; and when he came to himself, he recited these couplets:—
Fro’ them inhale I scent of Ottar and of Bán; ✿ So fare with heart which ecstasies of love unman: