1. When will you mend my slipper, oh one
That is gone or seems to go?

2. Black it is with a sheen you see
Like bubbles playing on it.

3. Else it's yellow as the sun when
Her gold robes drape down from her.

4. Else the grey of a dove who's been
Adorned with carved embellishment.

5. Else a mauve, the hue of aged amber
Like withered grapes, this strangest thing.

6. Else red, the red of anemones
Though this, yes this, is passing strange.

7. Else golden-brown, still competing with
The palest lilies in its range.

8. If I knew a green, I would have said
Green as the moss on water's face.

9. And ornamenting it, in eyes
Like steed's adornment in its place:

10. A strap, bent like an archer's bow
About to drink, yet nothing sips.

11. Else a reddish brown that fluttered by
Not drawing near nor drawing off.

12. Their eyes like gems when for the bucks
The does in file begin to walk.

13. It has a sun-disk dripping down
Like a loosed star in its free fall.

14. She's an untouched maid, rightly matched.
The maid's the best that one can catch.

15. Her lineage Yemen, though she seems
Of Persian stock in raiment's reach.

16. Swaying of waist, an antelope,
Her ears made racemes by the wind.

17. At her waist a boss whose shape
Excels the screw-ring's twists and bends.

18. She comes, a snake, and when she turns
A scorpion's tail is her return.

19. None but you is proof against
The innuendo of this chant.