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

64
—
SELECTIONS FROM ARABIAN POETRY.
THE ADIEU 1^
The boatmen shout, " 'Tis time to part,
No longer we can stay "
'Twas then Maimuna taught my heart
How much a glance could say.
With trembling steps to me she came;
" Farewell," she would have cried,
But ere her lips the word could frame
In half-form'd sounds it died.
Then bending down with looks of love,
Her arms she round me flung,
And, as the gale hangs on the grove,
Upon my breast she hung.
My willing arms embrac'd the maid,
My heart with raptures beat;
While she but wept the more and said,
" "
Would we had never met !
Abou Mohammed.
TO MY MISTRESS i«
Ungenerous and mistaken maid.
To scorn me thus because I'm poor!
Canst thou a liberal hand upbraid
For dealing round some worthless ore?
To spare 's the wish of little souls,
The great but gather to bestow
Yon current down the mountain rolls.
And stagnates in the swamp below.
Abou Teman Habib.
^ This was sung before the Caliph and ordering hirn a present of an hun-
Wathek, by Abou Mohammed, a mu- dred thousand dirhems.
sician of Bagdad, as a specimen of his ^^ Abou Teman is considered the most
musical talents; and such were its ef- excellent of all the Arabian poets. He
fects upon the Caliph, that he inime- was born near Damascus a.h. 190, and
diately testified his approbation of the educated in Egypt; but the principal
performance by throwing his own robe part of his life was spent at Bagdad,
over the shoulders of Abou Mohammed, under the patronage of the Abasside
Caliphs.
;