The Water Peri’s Song.

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.