midnight
this it is to be selected for the diversion of him that plotteth against man . ' Truly is it written : On different heads misfortunes come : One bears them firm , another faints , While this one hangs them like a drum Whereon to batter loud complaints . And of the three kinds , they who bang the drum outnumber the silent ones as do the billows of the sea the ships that swim , or the grains of sand the trees that grow ; a noisy multitude . Now , he was in the pits of despondency , even as one that yieldeth without further struggle to the waves of tempest at midnight , when he was ware of one standing over him , -- a woman , old , wrinkled , a very crone , with but room for the drawing of a thread between her nose and her chin ; she was , as is cited of them who betray the doings of Time , Wrinkled at the rind , and overripe at the core , and every part of her nodded and shook like a tree sapped by the waters , and her joints were sharp as the hind-legs of a grasshopper ; she was indeed one close-wrecked upon the rocks of Time . Now , when the old woman had scanned Shibli Bagarag , she called to him , ' O thou ! what is it with thee , that thou rollest as one reft of his wits ? ' He answered her , ` I bewail my condition , which is beggary , and the lack of that which filleth with pleasantness . '