Alas for Love, O ye tribe-landers, I ✿ Am weaned that wont nipples of union to drain.
I have learnt the whole of Love’s governance ✿ Since my baby days amid cradles lain.
Forbear by Allah to ask of my state ✿ How shall morn one bannèd with debtor bane?
O thou jewel of speech, O thou Yúsuf, laud ✿ To the Lord who robed thee with charms amain!
Deign the God of ’Arsh make thy days endure ✿ In wealth and honour sans pause or wane;
E’en as Ishák’s son[[292]] every gift conjoined ✿ Amid men, making rulers to serve him fain.”
When Muhjat al-Kulub ended her song, Yusuf gifted her with a splendid robe and a thousand gold pieces as eke did Ibrahim, and presently the courtier said to the handmaiden, “Who is Ibrahim that thou shouldst sing of him in song?” She replied, “Walláhi, O my lord, he is son of Ishak, amongst the pleasant ones sans peer and a cup-companion to the Caliphs dear and the pearl concealed and the boon friend of our lord the Commander of the Faithful Al-Maamún and his familiar who to him joy and enjoyment maketh known. Ah! happy the man who can look upon him and forgather with him and company with him before his death; and verily by Allah he is the master of the Age and the one Wonder of the World. Moreover, by the Almighty, O my lord, wert thou to see this lute fall into his hands, thou wouldst hear it converse in every language with the tongues of birds and beasts and of the sons of Adam: and well nigh would the place dance ere he had improvised a word. And he the horizons can make to joy and lover with overlove can destroy, nor shall any after his decease such excellence of speech employ.” All this, and Muhjat al-Kulub knew not who was sitting beside them as she went on to praise Ibrahim. Hereupon he took the lute from her hand and smote it till thou hadst deemed that within the instrument lurked babes of the Jinns[[293]] which were crying and wailing while spake the strings, and in fine King Yusuf imagined that the palace had upflown with them between heaven and earth. And the handmaidens sang to his tunes in sore astonishment; when Ibrahim designed to talk but King Yusuf cut him short and fell to saying poetry in these couplets:—
“By the rights of our lord who shows ruth in extreme, ✿ And Giver and Guide and boon Prophet we deem,
And by Ka’abah resplendent and all its site ✿ And by Zemzem, Safá and the wall Hatím,
Lo! thou ’rt hight Ibrahim, and suppose I say ✿ Thee sooth, my wits thou must surely esteem: