He said: “O lord of light in heaven above, Thou art the lightener of the angel realm, Thy lustre fills with radiance all the world, And reaches to the garden of the Rose. ’Tis by thy diligence that all things are, And are from elemental atoms formed. Thou art the eye and lamp of all the world, Light to men’s sight, and lustre to the stars. Unless the moon derived her light from thee, She were in darkness to the judgment day; And but that thou dost gaze upon the morn, The gloom of night would never leave the east. Thou art indeed the morning gate of love, Spreading thy light in footprints of the morn; Oh, let my ardent passion shine on her, And fall with suppliant words before her gate. Go humbly to the place where she abides, And fling thyself before her fairy feet. Oh, speak to yonder moon about my love, And say to her, Fair regent of the heavens, For thy great beauty lies thy lover low, And like a shadow trodden in the dust. For him there is no daylight in the world, So sorely absence keeps him prisoner. The night of absence wounds him to the quick, Oh, give him but a glimpse of thy fair face. Oh, change the loneliness of one long night For the delightsomeness of cheerful day. Let him, who is with passion deep consumed, Look with his longing eye upon his love. This wretched one is prisoner of thine, Have pity on the wandering devotee. Suffering and despite is his only wealth, And he is despicable all for thee. He stands unnoticed in the world’s wide house, Stretch out thy hand to welcome the despised; The window-sill and threshold of thy house, Shall then his Sacred Stone and Mecca be. He watches through the night till morn arise, And speaks aloud thy name in his distress. Early and late he thinks alone of thee; Early and late his heart is set on thee. His prayers he utters in thine ear alone, He turns to thee alone his anxious eye. Thou art his creed, all others he forswears; Thou art the sect and ritual that he loves. The creed that he professes is thy love. Offend not, then, the Mussulman’s belief. Grant, queen, the prayer of thy fond devotee, O Queen, propitious be to his desire.” ’Twas thus he spake aloud his inmost thought, But vain was all his pleading and his pain. And so he turned him from the sun and moon, Like Abraham, and made appeal to God. XXIV THE NIGHTINGALE, IN HIS DISTRESS, TURNS FROM SUN AND MOON AND ADDRESSES A PRAYER TO GOD