Zulaikha’s Second Dream.

Happy the heart which love hath made its abode!*
Which love hath set free from worldly cares!
He on whom the flashing lightning hath darted so vividly,
That it hath consumed the harvest of patience and reason;
In whom not a trace is left of anxiety about his security,
On whom a mountain of reproach weigheth but as a straw!
Zulaikha dwindled in a year like the waning moon;
In a year she had changed from the full to the new.
Seated at night in the grey twilight,
With blood-shot eye, and bowed like its crescent,
She would exclaim, “O Heaven, how hast thou dealt with me!
How hast thou paled the brilliancy of my sun!
Thou hast bent like a bow my stately form,
Thou hast made me a mark for the arrow of rebuke,
Thou hast given my reins to the hands of an arrogant one,
Of whom I know nothing, except his arrogance!
He hath kindled in my heart the flame of love,
Yet even in sleep dealeth with me like a niggard.
He never in my waking hours cometh to sit near me,
Never permitteth me to see him even in my dreams.
A sign that my fortune is wakeful were the sleep,
In which I could behold that world-illuming moon!
My eye no longer reposeth in sleep;
Oh, that my fortune would lend me its own sleep;
For my fortune would show itself awake from its sleep,
If it brought to me in sleep the vision of my friend!”
 
So she complaineth thro’ a watch of the night;
So cometh to her lips the anguish of her soul!
When suddenly sleep interrupted her fancies—
No not sleep—but rather bewilderment;
And hardly had her body touched her pallet,
When lo! her soul’s desire entered from the door.
The self-same image which before beset her way,
Entered with an aspect more radiant than the moon.
 
The moment her sight fell upon the beautiful countenance,
She sprang from her couch, and cast her head at his feet,
And kissed the ground, exclaiming, “O lovely as the rose and graceful as the cypress,
Thou who hast robbed my soul of rest and patience,
By that Maker who framed thee out of light,
Who created thee exempt from all defilement;
Who gave thee pre-eminence over all lovely things,
And greater sweetness than the water of life;
Who made thy form a rose-tree in the garden of souls,
Thy lips a delicate morsel to meet those of spirits;
Who from thine heart-inflaming countenance kindled the taper,
Which like the moth hath consumed my soul;
Who made thy musky locks a noose,
Every hair of which entangleth me in its fetters;
Have mercy, I pray thee, on a love-sick maiden,
Open thy sweet ruby lips to give me an answer!
Tell me with this heart-captivating perfection
Who art thou?—from what family descended?
Art thou a sparkling jewel?—from what mine comest thou?
Art thou of royal birth?—where is thy palace?
And Joseph replied: “I am of mortal lineage,
Of the race formed of earthly dust and water:*
If thou makest a claim upon me as a lover;
If thou art sincere in what thou sayest,
See that thou keep true to thy love and thy promise,
That thou remain unmarried in mutual affection.
If I have inflicted a wound on thy bosom,
Think not that mine is free from a wound also;
For my heart in sympathy is fettered in thy snare,
And I too am marked with the self-same wound.”
 
When Zulaikha perceived this gentle bearing,
And heard this tender language from his ruby lips,
The mad demon again took possession of her mind,
Her soul like the moth fell again into the flame;
She tore her clothes as one teareth a rosebud,
She poured out on the ground her heart’s blood, like the tulip’s.
Now in her passion she lacerateth her face,
Now in yearnings rendeth her locks, hair by hair.

Her attendants gather round her and endeavour to sooth her, but she repulses all their efforts. They report her condition to her father. He consults his wise men and they prescribe a charm, practiced in the East, to restrain her free action. Then she bursts into fresh lamentations.

“Ah, would but favouring fate lend me its assistance,
I would fetter his foot in this chain of gold,
Then might I gaze upon his face as long as I would,
And in gazing upon him my dark day would once more be bright!
But what am I saying?—This delicately-nurtured being,
On the instep of whose foot every grain of dust
Would weigh like a mountain, pressing out his life,
Tho’ he hath crumpled up the carpet of my happiness,
How could I chuse so to burthen his soul!
How pain his precious ankle with a chain!
Sweeter were a hundred swords to my sorrowing heart,
Than that a thorn should pierce even his garment!
 
Then she fell with the wounds in her distracted breast,
As falleth to the ground the wounded bird;
For a time became the sharer of unconsciousness,
And again returned to her former condition;
Again, under the spell of her insane mind,
Commenceth anew the tale of her sorrows;
One while smiling, she bursteth again into lamentings;
Now appeareth dying, and now to live again:
So every moment she changed from state to state,
And continued another year in the same condition.