that fills all the place with balm--no starveling of desert sands.
From 'Umar ibn Rabí'a's 'Love Poems': Translation of W. Gifford Palgrave
Ah, for the throes of a heart sorely wounded!
Ah, for the eyes that have smit me with madness!
Gently she moved in the calmness of beauty,
Moved as the bough to the light breeze of morning.
Dazzled my eyes as they gazed, till before me
All was a mist and confusion of figures.
Ne'er had I sought her, ne'er had she sought me;
Fated the love, and the hour, and the meeting.
There I beheld her as she and her damsels
Paced 'twixt the temple and outer inclosure;
Damsels the fairest, the loveliest, gentlest,
Passing like slow-wandering heifers at evening;
Ever surrounding with comely observance
Her whom they honor, the peerless of women.
"Omar is near: let us mar his devotions,
Cross on his path that he needs must observe us;
Give him a signal, my sister, demurely."
"Signals I gave, but he marked not or heeded,"
Answered the damsel, and hasted to meet me.
Ah, for that night by the vale of the sandhills!
Ah, for the dawn when in silence we parted!
He whom the morn may awake to her kisses
Drinks from the cup of the blessed in heaven.
From 'Umar ibn Rabí'a's 'Love Poems': Translation of W. Gifford Palgrave
In the valley of Mohassib I beheld her where she stood:
Caution bade me turn aside, but love forbade and fixed me there.
Was it sunlight? or the windows of a gleaming mosque at eve,
Lighted up for festal worship? or was all my fancy's dream?
Ah, those earrings! ah, that necklace! Naufel's daughter sure the maid,
Or of Hashim's princely lineage, and the Servant of the Sun!
But a moment flashed the splendor, as the o'er-hasty handmaids drew
Round her with a jealous hand the jealous curtains of the tent.
Speech nor greeting passed between us; but she saw me, and I saw
Face the loveliest of all faces, hands the fairest of all hands.
Daughter of a better earth, and nurtured by a brighter sky;
Would I ne'er had seen thy beauty! Hope is fled, but love remains.