I heard this lovely story, supposedly true; beautiful regardless. I picked the names Jameel and Jameelah for ease.
No man could compare with gracious Jameel,
And there was no lady who was fairer than Jameelah;
Her beauty unmatched and manner genteel
Had earned her the admiration of the whole qabeelah.
So when he made known his noble intent,
The tribespeople feared an immediate rejection.
But when she did bashfully give her consent,
Jameel was commended by them all with great affection.
With only a week until the big day,
Jameelah was injured in an accidental fire;
Her beautiful face was burned in a way,
And destined to never be an object of desire.
She sent for Jameel, and fought back her tears,
Determined to free him from a formidable kindness,
But news of Jameel came flooding her ears:
A poisonous meal had just resulted in his blindness.
They met, and they wept, and patiently sat
And all of the tribe was marveling at
The beautiful way in which they happened to be married.
Contented were they in all of their strife,
They raised a sweet child who was as lovely as her mother,
While time gnawed away at their mantle of life,
Jameel could not stop the flow of his tears,
In patient submission at the grave of his Jameelah;
And after a span of sixty five years,
He thought of the times when he pretended not to see her.
The scars in her face her heart did conceal,
His love went beyond the thing that made him feign his blindness.
How pure was the love of gracious Jameel,
Surpassed only by the likes of his Jameelah’s kindness.
This is beautiful, thank you for sharing