“When Ra’ûnah saw that she could not get to her lover, and that each moment was carrying him farther away, she cried to him to return, and bursting into sobs, she bemoaned her abandonment, and told her tale of love in words of endearment and despair that passed into a song, which to this day is known as Ra’ûnah’s Lament.
“Yes, I can remember the verses, and will repeat them if it does not weary you. The Nakhôdah never returned.
“‘Oh, shelter! my dear shelter! the palm stands in the plain.
The fruit of the nutmeg falls to the ground and lies there.
Thine is thy sister, small but comely,
Thy diamond! the light of Permâtang Guntong.
Oh, my shelter! I hear the measured splash of the oars;
I see the drift-weed caught in the rudder.
Thou art above, my protecting shelter;
I am beneath, in lowly worship.