Then Nur al-Din wept with weeping galore than which naught could be more; and peering into every corner of the room, recited these two couplets:—
I view their traces and with pain I pine ✿ And by their sometime home I weep and yearn; And Him I pray who parting deigned decree ✿ Some day He deign vouchsafe me their return!
Then Nur al-Din sprang to his feet and locking the door of the house, fared forth running at speed, to the sea shore whence he fixed his eyes on the place of the ship which had carried off his Miriam whilst sighs burst from his breast and tears from his lids as he recited these couplets:—
Peace be with you, sans you naught compensateth me ✿ The near, the far, two cases only here I see: I yearn for you at every hour and tide as yearns ✿ For water-place wayfarer plodding wearily.
With you abide my hearing, heart and eyen-sight ✿ And (sweeter than the honeycomb) your memory. Then, O my Grief when fared afar your retinue ✿ And bore that ship away my sole expectancy.
And Nur al-Din wept and wailed, bemoaned himself and complained, crying out and saying, “O Miriam! O Miriam! Was it but a vision of thee I saw in sleep or in the allusions of dreams?” And by reason of that which grew on him of regrets, he recited these couplets[505]:—
Mazed with thy love no more I can feign patience, This heart of mine has held none dear but thee! And if mine eye hath gazed on other’s beauty, Ne’er be it joyed again with sight of thee! I’ve sworn an oath I’ll ne’er forget to love thee, And sad’s this breast that pines to meet with thee! Thou’st made me drink a love-cup full of passion, Blest time! When I may give the draught to thee! Take with thee this my form where’er thou goest, And when thou’rt dead let me be laid near thee! Call on me in my tomb, my bones shall answer And sigh responses to a call from thee! If it were asked, “What wouldst thou Heaven should order?” “His will,” I answer, “First, and then what pleases thee.”
As Nur al-Din was in this case, weeping and crying out, “O Miriam! O Miriam!” behold, an old man landed from a vessel and coming up to him, saw him shedding tears and heard him reciting these verses:—
O Maryam of beauty[506] return, for these eyne ✿ Are as densest clouds railing drops in line: Ask amid mankind and my railers shall say ✿ That mine eyelids are drowning these eyeballs of mine.