Thine eyes shall never see in hair so black
Beauty encase a brow so purely white.
The ruddy rosy cheek proclaims her claim,
Though fail her name whose beauties we indite.
As sways her gait, I smile at hips so big
And weep to see the waist they bear so slight.
When the porter looked upon her, his wits were waylaid and his
senses were stormed so that his crate went nigh to fall from his head,
and he said to himself, "Never have I in my life seen a day more
blessed than this day!" Then quoth the lady portress to the lady
cateress, "Come in from the gate and relieve this poor man of his
load." So the provisioner went in, followed by the portress and the
porter, and went on till they reached a spacious ground-floor hall,
built with admirable skill and beautified with all manner colors and
carvings, with upper balconies and groined arches and galleries and
cupboards and recesses whose curtains hung before them. In the midst
stood a great basin full of water surrounding a fine fountain, and
at the upper end on the raised dais was a couch of juniper wood set
with gems and pearls, with a canopy like mosquito curtains of red
satin-silk looped up with pearls as big as filberts and bigger.
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