Thou, thou, adored! might be mine own A thousand deaths let Majnūn die Ere but a breath by slander blown Should sully Lailī’s purity! Go, then—and to thy tribe return, Fly from my arms that clasp thee yet; I feel my brain with frenzy burn— Oh, joy, could I but thus forget!” With another kiss upon the silent lips—another close embrace, the manly lover tore himself away to another struggle between death and life; still warring in the unequal strife with fate, he told to the desert wind, his piteous tale: “The fevered thoughts that on me prey Death’s sea alone can sweep away. I found the bird of Paradise That long I sought with care; Fate snatched it from my longing eyes— I held—despair. Wail, Lailī, wail our fortunes crossed, Weep, Majnūn, weep—forever lost.” DEATH OF THE LOVERS. Time passed by on leaden feet, for he no longer carried in his hands the flowers of hope. No longer the bare horizon of the desert was illumined with the mirage of rivers and palms. Fate had done her worst, and Death, the great consoler, waited near to place his seal with the touch of peace upon the weary brow. The flower of the desert lay again in the tower where she had passed so many wasted years, and feeling that her life was going out with the glory of the setting sun, she called her mother to her side and pleaded that when she was gone Majnūn might be allowed to weep over her grave. “Again it was the task of faithful Zyd, Through far extending plain and forest wide, To seek the man of woes, and tell The fate of her, alas! he loved so well. With bleeding heart he found his lone abode, Watering with tears the path he rode. And beating his sad breast, Majnūn perceived His friend approach, and asked him why he grieved? ‘Alas!’ he cried, ‘the hail has crushed my bowers, A sudden storm has blighted all my flowers; Thy cypress tree o’erthrown, the leaves are sear; The moon has fallen from her lucid sphere; Lailī is dead.’ His sad duty was done, and the bereaved lover lay unconscious at his feet. With gentle ministry the stricken man was roused from his swoon, and then he started toward the loved one’s grave. “Now he threads The mazes of the shadowy wood, which spreads Perpetual gloom, and now emerges where No bower nor grove obstructs the fiery air; Climbs the mountain’s brow, o’er hill and plain Urged quicker onward by his burning brain, Across the desert’s arid boundary hies Zyd, like a shadow, following where he flies.