The Water Peri’s Song
by
Farewell, farewell, to my mother’s own daughter.
The child that she wet-nursed is lapp’d in the wave;
The Mussulman, coming to fish in this water,
Adds a tear to the flood that weeps over her grave.
This sack is her coffin, this water’s her bier,
This grayish bath cloak is her funeral pall;
And, stranger, O stranger! this song that you hear
Is her epitaph, elegy, dirges, and all!
Farewell, farewell, to the child of Al Hassan,
My mother’s own daughter–the last of her race–
She’s a corpse, the poor body! and lies in this basin,
And sleeps in the water that washes her face.