From my core of heart fly all cark and care ✿ After parting that seemèd all Time defy.
A Lion am I for the love of him ✿ Whom the slanderer’s part ne’er can satisfy:
My mind and soul be this day with you ✿ But my heart and thought are at enmity:
Thought and mind delight in Love’s cruelty ✿ While heart and soul for reunion cry:
And if mind and thought e’er can overcome ✿ Soul and heart, Re-union thou ne’er shalt ’spy.”
And when Yusuf had finished his writing, he gifted Ibrahim with an hundred dinars and sent him again to Al-Hayfa with the letter, and she on receiving it shed tears and said, “O Ibn Ibrahim, seeing that his soul and heart be with us, Allah Almighty availeth to turn his thoughts and his fancy and the mind of him.” Hereupon she took writing materials and wrote:—
“Calm, O my lord, thy vitals’ painful plight, ✿ O thou whose semblance lighteth sooty night:
O gladding heart, O sweet of union, Oh ✿ Whose charms the tribe in festal hours delight:
O high in honour passing height of Kings, ✿ O thou with purest blood ’mid Kings bedight,
Fear’st not the Throne[[254]] of God (O hope of me!) ✿ When harming heart whereon all pains alight?