The boatmen shout, "Tis time to part,
No longer we can stay"--
'Twas then Maimnna taught my heart
How much a glance could say.
With trembling steps to me she came;
"Farewell," she would have cried,
But ere her lips the word could frame
In half-form'd sounds it died.
Then bending down with looks of love,
Her arms she round me flung,
And, as the gale hangs on the grove,
Upon my breast she hung.
My willing arms embraced the maid,
My heart with raptures beat;
While she but wept the more and said,
"Would we had never met!"
_Abou Mohammed_.
[15] This was sung before the Caliph Wathek, by Abou Mohammed, a
musician of Bagdad, as a specimen of his musical talents; and such
were its effects upon the Caliph, that he immediately testified his
approbation of the performance by throwing his own robe over the
shoulders of Abou Mohammed, and ordering him a present of an hundred
thousand dirhems.