A seer of the stars one night was reading the book of the skies, When lo, in his scroll he saw a lovely youth arise. Saturn had dyed his hair the hue of the raven's wing And sprinkled upon his face the musk of Paradise[FN#53]: The rose of his cheeks from Mars its ruddy colour drew, And the Archer winged the shafts that darted from his eyes. Hermes dowered the youth with his own mercurial wit, And the Great Bear warded off the baleful glance of spies. Wonder seized on the sage at the sight of the lovely boy, For the full moon kissed the earth before him, servant-wise. And indeed God the Most High had clad him in the garment of perfection and broidered it with the shining fringes of his cheeks, even as says the poet of him: By the perfume of his eyelids and his slender waist I swear, By the arrows that he feathers with the witchery of his air, By his sides so soft and tender and his glances bright and keen, By the whiteness of his forehead and the blackness of his hair, By his arched imperious eyebrows, chasing slumber from my eyes, With their yeas and noes that hold me 'twixt rejoicing and despair, By the myrtle of his whiskers and the roses of his cheeks, By his lips' incarnate rubies and his teeth's fine pearls and rare, By his neck and by its beauty, by the softness of his breast And the pair of twin pomegranates that my eyes discover there, By his heavy hips that tremble, both in motion and repose, And the slender waist above them, all too slim their weight to bear, By his skin's unsullied satin and the quickness of his spright, By the matchless combination in his form of all things fair, By his hand's perennial bounty and his true and trusty speech, By the stars that smile upon him, favouring and debonair, Lo, the smell of musk none other than his very fragrance is, And the ambergris's perfume breathes around him everywhere. Yea, the sun in all its splendour cannot with his grace compare, Seeming but a shining fragment that he from his nail doth pare.