And how excellent is the saying of another![[287]]—
A fair one, to idolaters if she her face should show, They’d leave their idols and her face for only Lord would know.
If in the Eastward she appeared unto a monk, for sure, He’d cease from turning to the West and to the East bend low;
And if into the briny sea one day she chanced to spit, Assuredly the salt sea’s floods straight fresh and sweet would grow.
And that of another:—
I looked at her one look and that dazed me ✿ Such rarest gifts of mind and form to see,
When doubt inspired her that I loved her, and ✿ Upon her cheeks the doubt showed showily.
I saluted her and she said to me, “Well come and welcome, and fair welcome!”; and taking me by the hand, O Prince of True Believers, made me sit down by her side; whereupon, of the excess of my desire, I fell a-weeping for fear of severance and pouring forth the tears of the eye, recited these two couplets:—
I love the nights of parting though I joy not in the same ✿ Time haply may exchange them for the boons of Union-day:
And the days that bring Union I unlove for single thought, ✿ Seeing everything in life lacking steadfastness of stay.