burton--1001-nights--sample

Here! Here! by Allah, here! * Cups of the sweet, the dear!
Fill me a brimming bowl * The Fount o’ Life I speer.
Then the Porter stood up before the mistress of the house and said,
“O lady, I am thy slave, thy Mameluke, thy white thrall, thy very bondsman;”
and he began reciting: —
A slave of slaves there standeth at thy door * Lauding thy generous
boons and gifts galore:
Beauty! may he come in awhile to ’joy * Thy charms? for Love and I
part nevermore!
She said to him, “Drink; and health and happiness attend thy drink.”
So he took the cup and kissed her hand and recited these lines in singsong:
—
I gave her brave old wine that like her cheeks * Blushed red or flame
from furnace flaring up:
She bussed the brim and said with many a smile * How durst thou
deal folk’s cheek for folk to sup?
“Drink!” (said I) “these are tears of mine whose tinct * Is heart-blood
sighs have boilèd in the cup.”
She answered him in the following couplet: —
An tears of blood for me, friend, thou hast shed * Suffer me sup them,
by thy head and eyes!
Then the lady took the cup, and drank it off to her sisters’ health, and
they ceased not drinking (the Porter being in the midst of them), and
dancing and laughing and reciting verses and singing ballads and ritornellos.
All this time the Porter was carrying on with them, kissing,
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