I found me felled by fair wide-opened eyes, *
Which pierced my heart with stringless archery:
And soft, lithe, swaying shape enraptured me *
As sway the branches of the willow-tree:
Wi' them I covet union that I win, *
O'er love-pains cark and care, a mastery.
For love of them aye, morn and eve I pine, *
And doubt all came to me from evil eyne."

And when his lines were ended he wept, till he swooned away, and
abode in his swoon a long while; but as soon as he came to
himself, he looked right and left and seeing no one in the
desert, he became fearful of the wild beasts; so he clomb to the
top of a high mountain, where he heard the voice of a son of Adam
speaking within a cave. He listened and lo! they were the accents
of a devotee, who had forsworn the world and given himself up to
pious works and worship. He knocked thrice at the cavern-door,
but the hermit made him no answer, neither came forth to him;
wherefore he groaned aloud and recited these couplets.

"What pathway find I my desire t'obtain, *
How 'scape from care and cark and pain and bane?
All terrors join to make me old and hoar *
Of head and heart, ere youth from me is ta'en:
Nor find I any aid my passion, nor *
A friend to lighten load of bane and pain.
How great and many troubles I've endured! *
Fortune hath turned her back I see unfain.
Ah mercy, mercy on the lover's heart, *
Doomed cup of parting and desertion drain!