40 days and 40 nights
O heart! Be hushed within my breast,
Burst not with rapture! Can it be?
The idol of my life- divine,
All radiant, clothed in mystery,
And loving me as I adore,
As none dared ever love before,
Shall be- nay, is- even now, is mine!
I will be patient, but his breath
Seems stealing o'er my senses- death
Were better than suspense like this-
I hailed the night, that I might gaze
Upon his star's unconquered blaze:
the morn but rose that I might pray,
Hope, wish, expect from day to day,
My sole existence was that thought,
And I do wake to know 'tis naught?
Vain tears, vain madness, vain endeavor,
Another blasts my sight forever!
-"Yussef and Zuleika" by Jami,
the last of the great classic poets of Persia,
15th century
Burst not with rapture! Can it be?
The idol of my life- divine,
All radiant, clothed in mystery,
And loving me as I adore,
As none dared ever love before,
Shall be- nay, is- even now, is mine!
I will be patient, but his breath
Seems stealing o'er my senses- death
Were better than suspense like this-
I hailed the night, that I might gaze
Upon his star's unconquered blaze:
the morn but rose that I might pray,
Hope, wish, expect from day to day,
My sole existence was that thought,
And I do wake to know 'tis naught?
Vain tears, vain madness, vain endeavor,
Another blasts my sight forever!
-"Yussef and Zuleika" by Jami,
the last of the great classic poets of Persia,
15th century