Draw my tears, I would not sigh.’
“I must translate a few more lines, to show more strongly the similarity of these songs to that of Solomon; and lest it should be thought that I have varied the expressions, I shall not attempt to translate into verse. In the same collection of poems sung at Zikrs is one which begins with these lines:—
‘O gazelle from among the gazelles of El-Yem’en!
I am thy slave without cost;
O thou small of age, and fresh of skin!
O thou who art scarce past the time of drinking milk!’
“In the first of these verses we have a comparison exactly agreeing with that in the concluding verse of Solomon’s Song; for the word which, in our Bible, is translated a ‘roe,’ is used in Arabic as synonymous with ghaza’l (or a gazelle); [[116]]and the mountains of El-Yem’en are ‘the mountains of spices.’ This poem ends with the following lines:—
‘The phantom of thy form visited me in my slumber.
I said, “O phantom of slumber! who sent thee?”
He said, “He sent me whom thou knowest;