I was thy dearling, fain with thee to dwell ✿ But thou transgressedst nor return canst speer:
And if by every means thou find me not, ✿ From thee I fled and other hold I dear:
I come in dreams to see if sore thy heart; ✿ Let it take patience in its woe sincere:
Thou dost beweep our union fled, but I ✿ Wist that such weeping brings no profit clear:
Ho, stander at my door, once honoured guest, ✿ Haply my tidings thou some day shalt hear.”
Thereupon, O Commander of the Faithful, I returned to my mother and sister and told them the tale of what had betided me, first and last, and the twain wept over me and my parent said, “I thought not, O my son, that such case as this would come down upon thee; withal every calamity save Death is no calamity at all; so be thou of long-suffering, O my child, for the compensation of patience is upon Allah; and indeed this that hath happened to thee hath happened unto many the likes of thee, and know thou that Fate is effectual and Sort is sealed. Hast thou not heard the words of the poet who spoke these couplets:[[149]]—
The world aye whirleth with its sweet and sour ✿ And Time aye trippeth with its joy and stowre:
Say him to whom life-change is wilful strange ✿ Right wilful is the world and risks aye low’r:
See’st now how Ocean overwhelms his marge ✿ And stores the pearl-drop in his deepest bow’r:
On Earth how many are of leafy trees, ✿ But none we harvest save what fruit and flow’r: