1. No yearning of the soul for a forest
Where I and Hind once used to meet

2. I was as the breeze and youth wished me to be
And she was as her fancies willed to be

3. Her gentle meanings are almost
Drunk in by a beholding mind

4. I believe in God and His signs
Is not God her creator?

5. I take the flowers unawares at dawn
Leaning in their corners

6. The narcissus bends its slender neck
And the lily unveils her finery

7. Their hues convulsed in the sunlight
As though remembering their bygone days

8. The waters round them harmonized
And the birds sing their praise

9. Who taught the birds their melodies
And the flowers their affinity?

10. O Hind, these are the miracles of love
They are here as they are in it

11. The flowers are not shy to proclaim it
Why then should we conceal it?

12. The birds celebrate it in the thickets
Why then should we deny it?

13. To God belong our days in the forest
Only their passing saddens it

14. Now the shade of its branches covers us
Now the bend of its creeks

15. Now we toy with its grapes
Now count its unripe figs

16. Its birds fall silent should we complain
As though their song would annoy it

17. And if we laugh we hear the echo
Laugh in return from its farthest reaches

18. And if we walk atop its dunes
Its sides shine as they split before us

19. And above us, the branches entwined
Tresses, long their dangling

20. If we shake them in sudden frolic
They cast down their trinkets in alarm

21. We walk from cave to brook
Discovering the land, unfolding it

22. The light is perfume in its winding path
The perfume, light on its edges

23. And Hind hides so I miss her
And I hide from her so she wants me

24. How fear has fooled me of looming change
To disturb my soul and unsettle it

25. I ran to her, afraid for her sake
And what I dreaded came to pass

26. How strange are my ways and hers!
She plays with me and I oblige her

27. God, if only the days of love lasted
And Hind's gathering of me lasted

28. My wilderness today would be like my pact with her
And she I loved in it would be too

29. And the hills like the curves of a beautiful woman
And the slopes like their undulations

30. Dew would drip on its grasses
And the unripe figs on its paths

31. And the dawn strew its ground
With nets of light from on high

32. Yesterday, longing led me down to its bosom
For the music of its dicing

33. But it did not tear me with its leaves
Nor ring its channels for me

34. Man has changed its ways
And robbed its birds of their nests

35. He broke its inertia with gunpowder
And uprooted its creeks with axes

36. And built from its stones a village
Whose people settled and claimed it

37. O yearning of the soul for a forest
Where I and Hind once used to meet

38. The garden of my dreams and hers
The home of my love and our affinity

39. We cry in despair over its thorns
Though they drew my blood and drew hers

40. It used to shelter us with its leaves
Now buildings shelter it