Ya Amali

As my thoughts and feelings come and go, 

groping for comforts in this world,

no image returns as oft' as hers...

though many faces compete for ponder,
her cherubic countenance and ivory veil
have plundered my store of 

weary hopes and neglected sentiments...

                                                                            yet the candid flame she brought to that dreary room

                                                                             shall soon burnout and the chamber locked,

                                                                           as she sets her gaze Eastward carrying away

                                                                      both lock and key to Bilad al-Sham.

True Love < > True Friend

But if good faith has such attractive power that we love it in those whom we have never seen, or -- better yet -- in an enemy, how amazing is it if the minds of men are moved to affection when they behold the virtue and goodness of those with whom they can become intimately united?

Love is, indeed, strengthened by favors received, by witnessing diligence in one's service, and by habitual intercourse (e.g. conversation); and when these are added to the first impulse of the mind toward love, there flames forth a marvellously rich glow of affectionate feeling. If there are any who think that this proceeds from conscious weakness and the desire to have some person through whom one can obtain what he lacks, they actually give to friendship a mean and utterly ignoble origin, born, as they would have it, of poverty and neediness.    Cicero,  De Amicitia 9