Thou art bold in the copy thou sentest! May be ✿ ’Twill increase the dule foreign wight must dree! Thou hast spied me with glance that bequeaths thee woe ✿ Ah! far is thy hope, a mere foreigner’s plea! Who art thou, poor freke, that wouldst win my love ✿ Wi’ thy verse? What seeks thine insanity? An thou hope for my favours and greed therefor; ✿ Where find thee a leach for such foolish gree? Then rhyme-linking leave and fool-like be not ✿ Hanged to Cross at the doorway of ignomy! Deem not that to thee I incline, O youth! ✿ ’Mid the Sons of the Path[384] is no place for me. Thou art homeless waif in the wide wide world; ✿ So return thee home where they keen for thee:[385] Leave verse-spouting, O thou who a-wold dost wone, ✿ Or minstrel shall name thee in lay and glee: How many a friend who would meet his love ✿ Is baulked when the goal is right clear to see! So begone and ne’er grieve for what canst not win ✿ Albe time be near, yet thy grasp ’twill flee. Now such is my say and the tale I’d tell; ✿ So master my meaning and—fare thee well! When Mariyah had made an end of her verses, she folded the letter and delivered it to the nurse, who hent it and went with it to Al-Abbas. When she gave it to him, he took it and breaking it open, read it and comprehended its contents; and when he reached the end of it, he swooned away. After awhile, he came to himself and cried, “Praise be to Allah who hath caused her return a reply to my writ! Canst thou carry her another missive, and with Allah Almighty be thy requital?” Said she, “And what shall letters profit thee, seeing that such is her reply;” but he said, “Peradventure, she may yet be softened.” Then he took ink-case and paper and wrote these couplets:— Reached me the writ and what therein didst write, ✿ Whence grew my pain and bane and blight: I read the marvel-lines made wax my love ✿ And wore my body out till slightest slight.[386] Would Heaven ye wot the whole I bear for love ✿ Of you, with vitals clean for you undight! And all I do t’ outdrive you from my thought ✿ ’Vails naught and ’gainst th’ obsession loses might: Couldst for thy lover feel ’twould ease his soul; ✿ E’en thy dear Phantom would his sprite delight! Then on my weakness lay not coyness-load ✿ Nor in such breach of troth be traitor-wight: And, weet ye well, for this your land I fared ✿ Hoping to ’joy the union-boon forthright: How many a stony wold for this I spanned; ✿ How oft I waked when men kept watch o’ night! To fare fro’ another land for sight of you ✿ Love bade, while length of way forbade my sprite: So by His name[387] who molt my frame, have ruth, ✿ And quench the flames thy love in me did light: Thou fillest, arrayed with glory’s robes and rays, ✿ Heaven’s stars with joy and Luna with despight. Then who dare chide or blame me for my love ✿ Of one that can all Beauty’s boons unite?