I, oft as ever grows the pine of me, ✿ Console my soul with hope thy sight to see. Haply shall Allah join our parted lives, ✿ E’en as my fortunes far from thee cast He! Then oh! who thrallest me by force of love— ✿ Seizèd by fond affection’s mastery, All hardships easy wax when thou art nigh; ✿ And all the far draws near when near thou be. Ah! be the Ruthful light to lover fond, ✿ Love-lorn, frame-wasted, ready Death to dree! Were hope of seeing thee cut off, my loved; ✿ After thine absence sleep mine eyes would flee! I mourn no worldly joyance, my delight ✿ Is but to sight thee while thou seest my sight. At this the accursed Iblis was hugely pleased and thrust his finger up his fundament,[175] whilst Maymun danced and said, “O Tohfat al-Sudur, soften the sound;[176] for, as pleasure entereth into my heart, it arresteth my breath and blood.” So she took the lute and altering the tune, played a third air; then she returned to the first and sang these couplets:— The waves of your[177] love o’er my life have rolled; ✿ I sink while I see you all aid withhold: You have drowned my vitals in deeps of your love, ✿ Nor can heart and sprite for your loss be consoled: Deem not I forget my troth after you: ✿ How forget what Allah decreed of old?[178] Love clings to the lover who nights in grief, ✿ And ’plains of unrest and of woes ensouled. The kings and all those who were present rejoiced in this with joy exceeding and the accursed Iblis came up to Tohfah and kissing her hand, said to her “Verily there abideth but little of the night; so tarry with us till the morrow, when we will apply ourselves to the wedding[179] and the circumcision.”[180] Then all the Jann went away, whereupon Tohfah rose to her feet and Iblis said, “Go ye up with Tohfah to the garden for the rest of the night.” So Kamariyah took her and went with her into the garden, which contained all manner birds, nightingale and mocking-bird and ring-dove and curlew[181] and other than these of all the kinds. Therein were all manner of fruits: its channels[182] were of gold and silver and the water thereof, as it broke forth of its conduits, was like the bellies of fleeing serpents, and indeed it was as it were the Garden of Eden.[183] When Tohfah beheld this, she called to mind her lord and wept sore and said, “I beseech Allah the Most High to vouchsafe me speedy deliverance and return to my palace and to my high estate and queendom and glory, and reunion with my lord and master Al-Rashid.” Then she walked about that garden and saw in its midst a dome of white marble, raised on columns of black teak whereto hung curtains purfled with pearls and gems. Amiddlemost this pavilion was a fountain, inlaid with all kinds of jacinths, and thereon a golden statue of a man and beside it a little door. She opened the door and found herself in a long corridor: so she followed it and entered a Hammam-bath walled with all