A Thing Remembered
I'll not forget the warm blue night when my bold girl,
Whose kissing lips smell sweet of honey and of rose water,

Came softly to my room, and my room glowed
As if the moon in her bright full had entered into me.

`Press me in your arms', she said. `All that your love demands
Ask and obtain. My old watching woman is far away.'

I pressed her in my arms, and said: `Your robe is a curtain.
Wherefore a curtain between me and thee, violet joy of my heart?'

And so saying, I began to undo some parts of her robe.
She looked smiling at me and I, also smiling, unloosed and unloosed.

`My joy, the flower in her bud pleases me not:
And fruit hanging under leaves delights me not.

`My sword I love not in its sheath, it is no pleasure
To see the stars of night hidden behind clouds.'

                                     From the Arabic