While that fair-faced boy abode in the place, ✿ Moon of breakfast-fête he lit by his face,[[381]]
Lo! there came a Shaykh with leisurely pace ✿ A reverend trusting to Allah’s grace,
And ascetic signals his gait display’d.
He had studied Love both by day and night ✿ And had special knowledge of Wrong and Right;
Both for lad and lass had repined his sprite, ✿ And his form like toothpick was lean and slight,
And old bones with faded skin were o’erlaid.
In such arts our Shaykh was an Ajamí[[382]] ✿ With a catamite ever in company;
In the love of woman, a Platonist he[[383]] ✿ But in either versed to the full degree,
And Zaynab to him was the same as Zayd.[[384]]
Distraught by the Fair he adored the Fair ✿ O’er Spring-camp wailed, bewept ruins bare.[[385]]