their lips with the waters, and lo! they commenced luting and laughing, and singing verses, and prattling, laughing betweenwhiles at each other; and one, a noisy one, with long, black, unquiet tresses, and a curved foot and roguish ankle, sang as she twirled:
My heart is another's, I cannot be tender;
Yet if thou storm it, I fain must surrender.
And another, a fresh-cheeked, fair-haired, full-eyed damsel, strong upon her instep and stately in the bearing of her shoulders, sang shrilly:
I'm of the mountains, and he that comes to me
Like eagle must win, and like hurricane woo me.
And another, reclining on a couch buried in dusky silks, like a butterfly under the leaves, a soft ball of beauty, sang moaningly:
Here like a fruit on the branch am I swaying;
Snatch ere I fall, love! there's death in delaying.
And another, light as an antelope on the hills, with antelope eyes edged with kohl, and timid, graceful movements, and small, white, rounded ears, sang clearly:
Swiftness is mine, and I fly from the sordid;
Follow me, follow! and you'll be rewarded.
And another, with large limbs and massive mould, that stepped like a cow leisurely cropping the pasture, and shook with jewels amid her black hair and above her brown eyes, and round her white neck and her wrists, and on her waist, even to her ankle, sang as with a kiss upon every word:
Sweet 'tis in stillness and bliss to be basking!
He who would have me, may have for the asking.
