Though a-morn I may awake with all happiness in hand ✿ Though the world all be mine and like Kisra-kings[128] I reign; To me they had the worth of the winglet of the gnat ✿ When I fail to see thy form, when I look for thee in vain. When she had ended for a time her words and her weeping I said to her:—O my cousin, let this thy mourning suffice, for in pouring forth tears there is little profit! Thwart me not, answered she, in aught I do, or I will lay violent hands on myself! So I held my peace and left her to go her own way; and she ceased not to cry and keen and indulge her affliction for yet another year. At the end of the third year I waxed aweary of this longsome mourning, and one day I happened to enter the cenotaph when vexed and angry with some matter which had thwarted me, and suddenly I heard her say:—O my lord, I never hear thee vouchsafe a single word to me! Why dost thou not answer me, O my master? and she began reciting:— O thou tomb! O thou tomb! be his beauty set in shade ✿ Hast thou darkened that countenance all-sheeny as the noon? O thou tomb! neither earth nor yet heaven art to me ✿ Then how cometh it in thee are conjoined my sun and moon? When I heard such verses as these rage was heaped upon my rage; I cried out:—Well-away! how long is this sorrow to last? and I began repeating:— O thou tomb! O thou tomb! be his horrors set in blight? ✿ Hast thou darkenèd his countenance that sickeneth the soul? O thou tomb! neither cess-pool nor pipkin art to me ✿ Then how cometh it in thee are conjoinèd soil and coal?