Can it be love hath wounded thee or art thou shot with shafts?
For sure these fashions but belong unto a smitten swain.
Ho, pour me out full cups of wine and sing me eke, in praise Of
Tenam, Suleyma, Reb?b,[FN#35] a glad and lovesome strain!
Yea, let the grape-vine's sun[FN#36] go round, whose mansion is
its jar, Whose East the cupbearer and West my thirsty mouth
I feign.
I'm jealous of the very clothes she dights upon her side, For
that upon her body soft and delicate they've lain;
And eke I'm envious of the cups that touch her dainty lips, When
to the kissing-place she sets them ever and again.
Think not that I in anywise with sword am done to death; 'Tis by
the arrows of a glance, alack! that I am slain.
Whenas we met again, I found her fingers dyed with red, As 'twere
the juice of tragacanth had steeped them in its stain.
Said I to her, "Thou'st dyed thy palms,[FN#37] whilst I was far
away. This then is how the slave of love is 'quited for his
pain."
Quoth she (and cast into my heart the flaming fires of love,
Speaking as one who hath no care love's secret to contain),
"No, by thy life, this is no dye I've used! So haste thou not To
heap accusings on my head and slander me in vain.
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