Ah, for the throes of a heart sorely wounded! 
     Ah, for the eyes that have smit me with madness! 
     Gently she moved in the calmness of beauty,
     Moved as the bough to the light breeze of morning. 
     Dazzled my eyes as they gazed, till before me
     All was a mist and confusion of figures. 
     Ne’er had I sought her, ne’er had she sought me;
     Fated the love, and the hour, and the meeting. 
     There I beheld her as she and her damsels
     Paced ’twixt the temple and outer inclosure;
     Damsels the fairest, the loveliest, gentlest,
     Passing like slow-wandering heifers at evening;
     Ever surrounding with comely observance
     Her whom they honor, the peerless of women. 
     “Omar is near:  let us mar his devotions,
     Cross on his path that he needs must observe us;
     Give him a signal, my sister, demurely.” 
     “Signals I gave, but he marked not or heeded,”
     Answered the damsel, and hasted to meet me. 
     Ah, for that night by the vale of the sandhills! 
     Ah, for the dawn when in silence we parted! 
     He whom the morn may awake to her kisses
     Drinks from the cup of the blessed in heaven.

THE UNVEILED MAID

From ’Umar ibn Rabi’a’s ‘Love Poems’:  Translation of W. Gifford Palgrave

In the valley of Mohassib I beheld her where she stood: 
Caution bade me turn aside, but love forbade and fixed me there. 
Was it sunlight? or the windows of a gleaming mosque at eve,
Lighted up for festal worship? or was all my fancy’s dream? 
Ah, those earrings! ah, that necklace!  Naufel’s daughter sure the
maid,
Or of Hashim’s princely lineage, and the Servant of the Sun! 
But a moment flashed the splendor, as the o’er-hasty handmaids drew
Round her with a jealous hand the jealous curtains of the tent. 
Speech nor greeting passed between us; but she saw me, and I saw
Face the loveliest of all faces, hands the fairest of all hands. 
Daughter of a better earth, and nurtured by a brighter sky;
Would I ne’er had seen thy beauty!  Hope is fled, but love remains.

          FROM THE DIWAN OF AL-NABIGHAH

A eulogy of the valor and culture of the men of Ghassan, written in time of the poet’s political exile from them:  Translation of C. J. Lyall.

     Leave me alone, O Umaimah—­alone with my sleepless pain—­
       alone with the livelong night and the wearily lingering stars;
     It draws on its length of gloom; methinks it will never end,
       nor ever the Star-herd lead his flock to their folds of rest;—­
     Alone with a breast whose griefs, that roamed far afield by day,
       the darkness has brought all home:  in legions they throng around. 
     A favor I have with ’Amr, a favor his father bore
       toward me of old; a grace that carried no scorpion sting. 
     I swear (and my word