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Thursday, 10 April 2025

On a blind girl - Baha al-Din Zuhayr

They called my love a poor blind maid;
I love her more for that, I said;
I love her, for she cannot see 
These grey hairs which disfigure me 
 
We wonder not that wounds are made 
By an unsheathed and naked blade,
The marvel is that swords should slay,
While yet within their sheaths they stay.

She is a garden fair, where I 
Need fear no guardian’s prying eye 
Where, though my beauty blooms the rose,
Narcissuses their eyelids close.

Baha al-Din Zuhayr [aka Behá-ed-Dín Zoheir, Abu al-Fadl Zuhayr ibn Muhammad al-Muhallabi] (1186 – 1258) Egypt (born in Saudi Arabia)
Translated by E.H. Palmer
Source: The Poetical Works Of Behá-ed-Dín Zoheir Of Egypt  Vol. II, by E.H. Palmer, Cambridge University Press, 1877

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