My union seems far distant,
Will my love e'er meet mine eye?
Alas! did not estrangement
Draw my tears, I would not sigh.
'By dreary nights I'm wasted,
Absence makes my hopes expire;
My tears, like pearls, are dropping,
And my heart is wrapt in fire.
Whose is like my condition?
Scarcely know I remedy.
Alas! did not estrangement
Draw my tears, I would not sigh.
'O turtle dove! acquaint me
Wherefore thus dost thou lament?
Art thou so stung by absence?
Of thy wings deprived, and pent?
He saith, 'Our griefs are equal;
Worn away with love, I lie.'
Alas! did not estrangement
Draw my tears, I would not sigh.
'O First and Everlasting!
Show thy favour yet to me.
Thy slave, Ahh'mad El-Bek'ree,[1]
Hath no Lord excepting Thee.
By Tá-Há,[2] the great prophet,
Do thou not his wish deny.
Alas! did not estrangement
Draw my tears, I would not sigh.'
"I must translate a few more lines, to show more strongly the similarity of these songs to that of Solomon; and lest it should be thought that I have varied the expressions, I shall not attempt to translate into verse. In the same collection of poems sung at Zikrs is one which begins with these lines:—
'O gazelle from among the gazelles of El-Yem'en!
I am thy slave without cost;
O thou small of age, and fresh of skin!
O thou who art scarce past the time of drinking milk!'
"In the first of these verses we have a comparison exactly agreeing with that in the concluding verse of Solomon's Song; for the word which, in our Bible, is translated a 'roe,' is used in Arabic as synonymous with ghaza'l (or a gazelle);
