When Al-Hayfa heard his name her great love to him waxed greater. Then she took the lute upon her lap and caressed it with her finger-tips when it sighed and sobbed and groaned and moaned[[219]] and she fell to singing these verses:—
“A thousand welcomes hail thy coming fain, ✿ O Yúsuf, dearling son of Sahl’s strain:
We read thy letter and we understood ✿ Thy kingly birth from sand that told it plain:[[220]]
I’m thine, by Allah, I the loveliest maid ✿ Of folk and thou to be my husband deign:
Bruit of his fair soft cheek my love hath won ✿ And branch and root his beauty grows amain:
He from the Northern Realms to us draws nigh ✿ For King Mihrján bequeathing ban and bane;
And I behold him first my Castle seek ✿ As mate impelled by inspiration fain.
The land upstirs he and the reign he rules ✿ From East to West, the King my father slain;
But first he flies us for no fault of ours ✿ Upon us wasting senseless words and vain:
E’en so Creation’s Lord hath deigned decree, ✿ Unique in Heaven—glorified be He!”[[221]]