An thou hope for my favours and greed therefor; ✿ Where find thee a leach for such foolish gree?
Then rhyme-linking leave and fool-like be not ✿ Hanged to Cross at the doorway of ignomy!
Deem not that to thee I incline, O youth! ✿ ’Mid the Sons of the Path[[384]] is no place for me.
Thou art homeless waif in the wide wide world; ✿ So return thee home where they keen for thee:[[385]]
Leave verse-spouting, O thou who a-wold dost wone, ✿ Or minstrel shall name thee in lay and glee:
How many a friend who would meet his love ✿ Is baulked when the goal is right clear to see!
So begone and ne’er grieve for what canst not win ✿ Albe time be near, yet thy grasp ’twill flee.
Now such is my say and the tale I’d tell; ✿ So master my meaning and—fare thee well!
When Mariyah had made an end of her verses, she folded the letter and delivered it to the nurse, who hent it and went with it to Al-Abbas. When she gave it to him, he took it and breaking it open, read it and comprehended its contents; and when he reached the end of it, he swooned away. After awhile, he came to himself and cried, “Praise be to Allah who hath caused her return a reply to my writ! Canst thou carry her another missive, and with Allah Almighty be thy requital?” Said she, “And what shall letters profit thee, seeing that such is her reply;” but he said, “Peradventure, she may yet be softened.” Then he took ink-case and paper and wrote these couplets:—
Reached me the writ and what therein didst write, ✿ Whence grew my pain and bane and blight: