Page:Arabian Nights Entertainments (1728)-Vol. 5.djvu/74

THE Perſon who brings you this Letter will give you a better a Account concerning me than I can do; for I have not been my ſelf ſince I ſaw you: Being deprived of your Preſence, I ſought to divert my ſe!f by entertaining you with theſe ill writ Lines, with the ſame Pleaſure as if I had the good Fortune to ſpeak to you.

It’s ſaid that Patience is a Cure for all Diſtempers, but it ſours mine inſtead of ſweetning it. Altho’ your Picture be deeply engraven in my Heart, my Eyes deſire conſtantly to ſee the Original; and they will loſe their Light it they be any conſiderable Time deprived of it. May I flatter my ſelf that yours has the ſame Impatience to ſee me? Yes, I can; their tender Glances diſcover’d it to me. How happy, Prince, ſhould you and Schemſelnihar both be, if our agreeable Deſires were not croſs’d by invincible Obſtacles which afflict me as as ſenſibly as they do you.

Thoſe Thoughts which my Fingers write, and which I expreſs with incredible Pleaſure, and repeat again and again, ſpeak from the Bottom of my Heart, and from the incurable Wound which you have made in it; a Wound which I bleſs a thouſand times, notwithſtanding the cruel Torment I endure for your Abſence. I would reckon al that oppoſes our love nothing, were I only allow’d to ſee you ſometimes with Freedom; I would enjoy you then, and what could I deſire more?

Don’t imagine that I ſay more than I think. Alas! whatever Expreſſions I am able to uſe, yet I am ſenſible that I think more than I can tell you. My Eyes which are continually watching and weeping for your Ruturn: My afflicted Heart, which deſires nothing but you alone; The Sighs that eſcape me as often as I think on you, that is, every Moment: My Imagination, which repreſents no other Object to me than my dear Princes the Complaints that I make to Heaven for the Rigour of my Deſtiny: In a Word, my Grief, my Trouble, my Torments, which give me no Eaſe ever ſince I loſt the Sight of you, are Witneſſes of what I write.