Pagina 622 de 1116

Then he walked on till he came to the apartment of his brother's

widow, the mother of Badr al-Din Hasan, the Egyptian. Now from

the time of her son's disappearance she had never ceased weeping

and wailing through the light hours and the dark; and, when the

years grew longsome with her, she built for him a tomb of marble

in the midst of the saloon and there used to weep for him day and

night, never sleeping save thereby. When the Wazir drew near her

apartment, he heard her voice and stood behind the door while she

addressed the sepulchre in verse and said:-

"Answer, by Allah! Sepulchre, are all his beauties gone? * Hath

change the power to blight his charms, that Beauty's paragon?

Thou art not earth, O Sepulchre! nor art thou sky to me; * How

comes it, then, in thee I see conjoint the branch and moon?"