When I beheld thy blue eye shine
Thro' the bright drop that pity drew,
I saw beneath those tears of thine
A blue-eyed violet bath'd in dew.
The violet ever scents the gale,
Its hues adorn the fairest wreath,
But sweetest thro' a dewy veil
Its colours glow, its odours breathe.
And thus thy charms in brightness rise
When wit and pleasure round thee play,
When mirth sits smiling in thine eyes,
Who but admires their sprightly ray?
But when thro' pity's flood they gleam,
Who but must love their soften'd beam?
Ebn Alrumi (died 896) Syria
Translated by J.D. Carlyle
Source: Specimens of Arabian poetry, from the earliest time to the extinction of the Khaliphat, with some account of the authors by Carlyle, Joseph Dacre, Cambridge: Lunn, 1796
Breathtaking!!!
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