lay me in the tomb, my heart will love you"

And look at the close of the stanza: "So long as God is worshipped in heaven!" And he is ready to sacrifice everything for her sake, even his religion "For your sake I have forsaken my religion and the Book."

He finds the poison she gives him to drink sweeter than honey, and keeps her memory so that nothing comes between her and him "Between me and you are islands afloat in the sea; should my day come, and my body go down into the pit, I will send you my soul upon the waves of the sea, swimming"

Nothing tempts him to leave her; even Beirut does not allure him, and he stays bound to al-Bassa, where she is. Nor does the poet content himself with showing his feelings toward the beloved: he goes on to describe to us the beauty treasured in her, and describes the various parts of her body, for describing her makes him happy "In describing her the tongue is loosed; in telling of her beauty it takes cheer"

His descriptions of the body do not differ from those which Arabic poetry generally bestows upon it: her eyes are black, kohl-lined, almond-shaped; her hair tumbles loose upon her shoulders, with crimped braids like ostrich plumes, black as night, or as the hearth, hanging undyed like horses' manes; and she takes care of it and cuts it short in the European mode "She cut a length and let a length hang; she cut it in the Frankish cut"

She has an eyebrow like a keen sword, and cheeks in which sugar mingles with dibs (grape or carob molasses), and in her lips a welcoming spring for him who comes to it. As for his description of her nose—that the liquid within it revives the dead—and of her ear—that its scent cures the one

who has been stung—these are far from art. But he sings in describing her bosom, and claims he cannot do justice to what is there, though he tries

"I said: Paradise must be in it, whether below it or above it; seven stars shine in it, rising from among its veins; did she not keep it cov-ered, it would veil the shining sun"

And he pictures it for us as though the moon were struggling to break free of it, and speaks of her breasts, firm and finely turned. As for her waist, "its slenderness has undone all strength and cunning"; as for her neck, it "inclines and sways"; and as for her legs— (Her legs are a pair of wax candles; the goldsmith's hands it was that fetched them forth; whiter than the snow of Sannine, their color evenly matched. If they showed from beneath the pantaloons

a cripple, catching sight of them, would rise and walk from that very hour).

And she is tall of stature, like a lance and like a bough, with broad shoulders and movements that bewitch like the beating of tambourines. And why should he go on longer? She is sugar cane, and that is enough for him.

He describes for us the rings and anklets with which she adorns herself, and speaks of her dresses after the latest fashion, and especially (That pepper-hued dress of yours—in it are life and death).

And of her veil (The day she wears it for the feast, the birds of Paradise coo to her)

And in these songs there are certain glimpses of lovely