“O you whose name makes me dread to call your name, O you who are concealed from me by veils of greatness and walls of glory, houri whom I cannot hope to meet save in the equality of eternity. O you whom strong men obey, before whom servants bow low, to whom treasuries and temples are open, you rule a heart sanctified by love and have won the worship of a soul made noble by God. You have bewitched a mind that yesterday possessed the freedom of the fields but today has become a prisoner in the bonds of this passion. Fair one, I saw you and knew the reason I came into this world. When I learned how high was your station and considered my own lowliness, I understood that the gods have secrets not known to man, paths that spirits walk to a place where love shines without regard to human laws. I knew with certainty when I looked into your eyes that this life is a paradise whose gate is the human heart. When I saw your high rank and my own abasement wrestling like a lion and its prey, I knew that this world could no longer be my homeland. When I found you sitting among your ladies-in-waiting like a rose among the grasses, I thought that the bride of my dreams had been made flesh like me. When I learned of the high rank of your father, I found that the price of plucking the rose is fingers bloodied on the thorns—that what dreams gather, wakefulness scatters.”

He stood then and walked toward the spring, shoulders drooping, brokenhearted, giving voice to his grief and despair:

“Come, Death, deliver me! This earth, where thorns strangle the flowers, is not a fit place to live. Free me from this age in which love has been deposed from its throne of glory and high rank has usurped its place. Free me, Death, for eternity is a better place for lovers to meet than this world. There I will await my beloved, and there we will be united.”

When he reached the spring, evening was falling. The sun began to remove its golden bands from the fields as he sat there. His tears fell onto the ground that the Emir’s daughter had trod. He bent his head to his chest as if to prevent his heart from escaping.

At that moment a girl appeared from behind the willows, trailing her skirts in the grass. She stood beside the youth and placed her silken hand on his head. He looked at her, a sleeper wakened by a ray of sun. He saw the Emir’s daughter standing beside him. He fell to his knees, as when Moses saw the Burning Bush before him. His voice shook too much to speak, but his eyes, wet with tears, spoke for him.