The Shaving of Shagpat; an Arabian entertainment — Volume 1Meredith, George
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The Shaving of Shagpat; an Arabian entertainment — Volume 1
Meredith, George
Arab countries -- Fiction; Fantasy fiction, English
Shall I counsel the moon in her ascending?
Stay under that dark palm-tree through the night,
Rest on the mountain slope,
By the couching antelope,
O thou enthroned supremacy of light!
And for ever the lustre thou art lending
Lean on the fair long brook that leaps and leaps,
Silvery leaps and falls:
Hang by the mountain-walls,
Moon! and arise no more to crown the steeps,
For a danger and dolour is thy wending!
And she panted and sighed, and wept, crying, 'Who, who will kiss me or
have my kiss now, that I may indeed be as yonder beam? Who, that I may
be avenged on this King? And who sang that song of the ascending of the
moon, that comes to me as a part of me from old times?' As she gazed on
the circled radiance swimming under a plume of palm leaves, she
exclaimed, 'Ruark! Ruark the Chief!' So she clasped her hands to her
bosom, and crouched under the shadows of the garden, and fled through the
garden gates and the streets of the city, heavily veiled, to the prison
where Ruark awaited her within the walls and Ukleet without. The
Governor of the prison had been warned by Ukleet of her coming, and the
doors and bars opened before her unchallenged, till she stood in the cell
of Ruark; her eyes, that were alone unveiled, scanned the countenance of
the Chief, the fevered lustre-jet of his looks, and by the little
moonlight in the cell she saw with a glance the straw-heap and the
fetters, and the black-bread and water untasted on the bench--signs of
his misery and desire for her coming. So she greeted him with the word
of peace, and he replied with the name of the All-Merciful. Then said
she, 'O Ruark, of Rukrooth thy mother tell me somewhat.'
He answered, 'I know nought of her since that day. Allah have her in his
keeping!'
So she cried, 'How? What say'st thou, Ruark? 'tis a riddle.'
Then he, 'The oath of Ruark is no rope of sand! He swore to see her not
till he had set eyes on Bhanavar.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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