Entered the guards, brought by her messenger. 
    Thus was he captured, slain, and on her breast
Soon shone the guerdon of her treachery,
    The price of blood; in gold made manifest.

I might have killed her?  Brave men have died thus. 
    Revenge demanded keener punishment. 
So I walked softly on those lilac hills,
    Touching my rhibab lightly as I went.

I found her fair:  ’t was no unpleasant task
    In the young spring-time when the fruit-trees flower,
To pass her door, and pause, and pass again,
    Shading mine eyes against her beauty’s power.

Warmly I wooed her, while the almond trees
    Broke into fragile clouds of rosy snow. 
Her dawning passion feared her lord’s return,
    Ever she pleaded softly, “Let us go.”

But I spoke tenderly, and said, “Beloved,
    Shall not thy lips give orders to my heart? 
Yet there is one small matter in these hills
    Claiming attention ere I can depart.

“Let us not waste these days; thine absent lord
    Cannot return, thou know’st, before the snow
Has melted, and the almond fruits appear.” 
    This time she answered, “Naught but thee I know!”

I too was young; I could have loved her well
    When her soft eyes across the twilight burned;
But suddenly, around her amber neck,
    The golden beads would sparkle as she turned.

And I remembered; swift mine eyelids fell
    To hide the hate that festered in my soul,
Ever more deeply, with the rising fear
    That Love might wrench Revenge from my control.

But when at last she, acquiescent, lay
    In the sweet-scented shadow of the firs,
Lovely and broken, granting—­asking—­all,
    It was his eyes I met:  not hers—­not hers!

* * *

Three months I waited:  all the village talked,
    And ever anxiously she urged our flight. 
Yet still I lingered, till her beauty paled,
    And wearily she came to me at night.

Then, seeing Love, subservient to Revenge,
    Had well achieved his own creative end,
And in his work must soon be manifest,
    Compassing thus my duty to my friend,

One tranquil, sultry night I rode away
    Till far behind the purple hills were dim,
Exulting in my spirit, “Thus I leave
    Her to her fate, and my revenge to him!”

Swiftly he struck, her lord; the body lay
    With hacked-off breasts, dishonoured, in the Pass. 
Months later, riding lonely through the gorge,
    I saw it still, among the long-grown grass.

It was well done; my soul is satisfied. 
    Friendship is sweet, and Love is sweeter still,
But Vengeance has a savour all its own—­
    A strange delight—­well known to those who kill.

Such was the story Afzul told to me,
    While wood-fires crackled in the evening breeze,
And blows on hammered tent-pegs stirred the air
    Sweet with the fragrance from the Sinjib trees.