Through the base sweetness of a woman's smile.

Lovely she was, and young, who gave the youth
Kind words, and promised succor and repose,
Till on the quilt of false security
He found exhausted sleep; but, ere he rose,

Entered the guards, brought by her messenger.
Thus was he captured, slain, and on her breast
Soon shone the guerdon of her treachery,
The price of blood; in gold made manifest.

I might have killed her? Brave men have died thus.
Revenge demanded keener punishment.
So I walked softly on those lilac hills,
Touching my _rhibab_ lightly as I went.

I found her fair: 't was no unpleasant task
In the young spring-time when the fruit-trees flower,
To pass her door, and pause, and pass again,
Shading mine eyes against her beauty's power.

Warmly I wooed her, while the almond trees
Broke into fragile clouds of rosy snow.
Her dawning passion feared her lord's return,
Ever she pleaded softly, "Let us go."

But I spoke tenderly, and said, "Beloved,
Shall not thy lips give orders to my heart?
Yet there is one small matter in these hills