And Rose and Apple whose cheek is dight ✿ In days that glow with a fiery shine;
’Mid the music of strings and musician’s gear ✿ Where harp and pipe with the lute combine;—
An I fail to find her right soon shall I ✿ Of parting perish foredeemed to die!”
Then Al-Hayfa responded to him in the same rhyme and measure and spake to him as follows:—
“O thou who dealest in written line ✿ Whose nature hiding shall e’er decline;
And subdued by wine in its mainest might ✿ Like lover drunken by strains divine,[[216]]
Do thou gaze on our garden of goodly gifts ✿ And all manner blooms that in wreaths entwine;
See the birdies warble on every bough ✿ Make melodious music the finest fine.
And each Pippet pipes[[217]] and each Curlew cries ✿ And Blackbird and Turtle with voice of pine;
Ring-dove and Culver, and eke Hazár, ✿ And Katá calling on Quail vicine;