ANONYMOUS - The Thousand and One Nights

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Be not of those that look on Love with disdain,

But rather excuse and pity the lovers’ pain,

Lest thou be bound one day in the self-same chain,

And drink of the self-same bitter draught as they.

Alas for Love, and out on his whole array!

My heart with his flaming fires is burnt away.

There is none that can tell of Love and its bitterness

But he that is sick and weak for its long excess,

He who has lost his reason for love-distress,

Whose drink is the bitter dregs of his own dismay.

Alas for Love, and out on his whole array!

My heart with his flaming fires is burnt away.

How many a lover watches the darksome night,

His eyes forbidden the taste of sleep's delight!

How many whose tears, like rivers adown a height,

Course down their cheeks! How many are they that say,

Alas for Love, and out on his whole array!

My heart with his flaming fires is burnt away.

How many a lover wasteth for sheer despair,

Wakeful, for void of sleep is the dusky air!

Languor and pain are the clothes that he doth wear,

And even his pleasant dreams have gone astray.

Alas for Love, and out on his whole array!

My heart with his flaming fires is burnt away.

I, too, of old was empty of heart and free,

And lay down to rest in peace till I met with thee:

The taste of the sleepless nights was strange to me,

Till Love did beckon, and I must needs obey.

Alas for Love, and out on his whole array!

My heart with his flaming fires is burnt away.

How often my patience fails and my bones do waste,

And my tears, like a fount of blood, stream down in haste!

For my life, that of old was pleasant and sweet of taste,

A slender maiden hath bittered this many a day.

Alas for Love, and out on his whole array!

My heart with his flaming fires is burnt away.

Alack for the man among men that loves like me,

And watches the wings of night through the shadows flee!

Who drowns in his own despair as it were a sea,

Who cries, in the stress of an anguish without allay,

Alas for Love, and out on his whole array!

My heart with his flaming fires is burnt away.

Whom hath not Love stricken and wounded indeed?

Who has been aye from his easy fetters freed?

Whose life is empty of Love, and who succeed

In winning their hearts’ delight without affray?

Alas for Love, and out on his whole array!

My heart with his flaming fires is burnt away.

Who says to thee, "The first of love is free,"

Tell him, "Not so;" but on the contrary:

’Tis all constraint, wherein no blame can be.

History indeed attests this verity;

It does not style the good coin falsified.

Say, if thou wilt, "The taste of pain is sweet,

Or to be spurned by Fortune's flying feet;"

Talk of whatever makes the heart to beat

For grief or gladness, fortune or defeat;

’Twixt hope and fear I tarry stupefied.

But as for him whose happy days are light,

Fair maids whose lips with smiles are ever bright,

Sweet with the fragrant breath of their delight,

Who has his will, unhindered of despite,

’Tis not with him that craven fear should bide.

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Lady of beauty, that dost take all hearts with thy disdain,

And slay’st with stress of love the souls that sigh for thee in vain,

If thou recall me not to mind beyond our parting day,

God knows the thought of thee with me for ever shall remain.

Thou smitest me with cruel words, that yet are dear to me;

Wilt thou one day vouchsafe to me thy sweetest sight again?

I had not thought the ways of Love were languishment and woe

And stress of soul, before, alas! to love thee I was fain.

Even my foes have ruth on me and pity my distress;

But thou, O heart of steel, wilt ne’er have mercy on my pain!

By God, although I die, I’ll ne’er be comforted for thee!

Though Love itself should fail, my love shall never pass or wane!

…..

I strove to hide the load that Love on me did lay:

In vain; and sleep from me for aye is fled away.

Since that wanhope doth press my heart both night and day,

I cry aloud: "O Fate, hold back thy hand, I pray!

For all my soul is sick for anguish and dismay."

If that the Lord of Love were just indeed to me,

Sleep had not fled my eyes by his unkind decree.

Have pity, sweet, on one that is for love of thee

Worn out and wasted sore, that once was rich and free,

Now humbled and cast down by Love from his array.

Thy foes cease not to speak thee ill; I heed not, I;

But stop my ear to them and give them back the lie:

I'll keep my troth with her I love, until I die.

"Thou lovest one estranged," they say; and I reply:

Enough. Fate blinds the eyes of those that are its prey.

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