the branch am I swaying;
Snatch ere I fall, love! there's death in delaying.

And another, light as an antelope on the hills, with antelope eyes edged
with kohl, and timid, graceful movements, and small, white, rounded ears,
sang clearly:

Swiftness is mine, and I fly from the sordid;
Follow me, follow! and you'll be rewarded.

And another, with large limbs and massive mould, that stepped like a cow
leisurely cropping the pasture, and shook with jewels amid her black hair
and above her brown eyes, and round her white neck and her wrists, and on
her waist, even to her ankle, sang as with a kiss upon every word:

Sweet 'tis in stillness and bliss to be basking!
He who would have me, may have for the asking.

And another, with eyebrows like a bow, and arrows of fire in her eyes,
and two rosebuds her full moist parted pouting lips, sang, clasping her
hands, and voiced like the tremulous passionate bulbul in the shadows of
the moon:

Love is my life, and with love I live only;
Give me life, lover, and leave me not lonely.

And a seventh, a very beam of beauty, and the perfection of all that is
imagined in fairness and ample grace of expression and proportion, lo!
she came straight to Shibli Bagarag, and took him by the hand and pierced
him with lightning glances, singing:

Were we not destined to meet by one planet?
Can a fate sever us?--can it, ah! can it?

And she sang tender songs to him, mazing him with blandishments, so that
the aim of existence and the summit of ambition now seemed to him the
life of a king in that palace among the damsels; and he thought, 'Wah!
these be no illusions, and they speak the thing that is in them. Wullahy,
loveliness is their portion; they call me King.'

Then she that had sung to him said, 'Surely we have been waiting thee
long to crown thee our King! Thou hast been in some way delayed, O
glorious one!'

And he answered, 'O fair ones, transcending in affability, I have
stumbled upon obstructions in my journey hither, and I have met with
adventures, but of this crowning that was to follow them I knew nought.
Wullahy, thrice have I been saluted King; I whom fate selecteth for the
shaving of Shagpat, and till now it was a beguilement, all emptiness.'

They marked his bewildered state, and some knelt before him, some held
their arms out adoringly, some leaned to him with glistening looks, and
he was fast falling a slave to their flat