Chinese and Arabian Literature - E. Wilson - The Search For Mecca

SELECTIONS FROM ARABIAN POETRY 57
ON THE DEATH OF HIS MISTRESS
Dost thou wonder that I flew
Charm'd to meet my Leila's view?
Dost thou wonder that I hung
Raptur'd on my Leila's tongue?
—
If her ghost's funereal screech
Thro' the earth my grave should reach,
On that voice I lov'd so well
My transported ghost would dwell:
If in death I can descry
Where my Leila's relics lie,
Saher's dust will flee away,
There to join his Leila's clay.
Abu Saher "Alhedily.
ON AVARICE*
How frail are riches and their joys?
Morn builds the heap which eve destroys;
Yet can they have one sure delight
The thought that we've employ'd them right.
What bliss can wealth afford to me
When life's last solemn hour I see.
When Mavia's sympathizing sighs
Will but augment my agonies?
—
Can hoarded gold dispel the gloom
That death must shed around his tomb?
Or cheer the ghost which hovers there,
And fills with shrieks the desert air?
•The sentiment contained in this pro- mulgation of Mohammedanism. He
duction determines its antiquity. It was has been so much celebrated through
the opinion of the Pagan Arabs that the East for his generosity that even
upon the death of any person a bird, to this day the greatest encomium
by them called Manah, issued from his which can be given to a generous man
biain, which haunted the sepulchre of is to say that he is as liberal as Hatem.
the deceased, uttering a lamentable Hatem was also a poet; but his talents
scream. were principally exerted in recommend-
* Hatem Tai was an Arabian chief, ing his favorite virtue,
who lived a short time prior to the pro-
«