Arab Song

When her eyes' sudden challenge first halted my feet on the path,         I stood like a shivering caught fugitive, and strained at my breath,         And the Truth in her eyes was the portent of Love and of Death,         For I am of the tribe of Ben Asra, who die when they love.         O you who have faded because girls were contemptuous and cold,         I pitied you; but mine I have won, and her breast I enfold         Despairing, and in agony long for the thing that I hold:         For I am of the tribe of Ben Asra, who die when they love.         She is fair; and her eyes in her hair are like stars in a stream.         She is kind: never vaporous sleep-eddying maid in a dream         Leaning over my darkness-drowned pillow more tender did seem.         But her beauty and sweetness are as blasts from the sands of the South.         Drink me, palsy me, flay me, bleed my veins, chain my limbs, choke my mouth,         And make salt to my lips the wine that should temper my drouth:         For I am of the tribe of Ben Asra, who die when they love.         Death must come: it were best by a knife in her hand or my own.         She'd not strike and I dare not, but here, as I wander alone,         Should the wood topple over at a beast flying out like a stone         I shall smile in its face at her image bending down from the sky,         And its teeth in my neck will be hers, and its snarls as I die         Will be gentle and sweet to my ears as the voice of the dove:         For I am of the tribe of Ben Asra, who die when they love.