1. Behold! Laila lies sick in Iraq
While you, indifferent friend, make merry and sleep;

2. Were you to pine for love, madman,
You would pass the night weeping as Salim did.

3. They say Laila lies sick in Iraq;
Why don't you pine, you who are her friend?

4. May God heal all the sick ones in Iraq!
I wish well to them all, every sick one in Iraq

5. So Laila lies sick in Iraq;
And I am drowned in a sea of anxiety;

6. I roam the breadth of all countries,
Yet I have no road to Laila in the morning

7. My heart holds smouldering embers,
Flashing flames, lightnings;

8. When love recalls her to my soul,
It dies a still, sudden death;

9. Only her fatal sigh abides with me.
A sun which makes the full moon dim,

10. Eclipses the bright stars and lightnings,
Of graceful figure, slender waist,

11. In her beauty clearly shines.
Mad I am, made by love to wander,

12. As though bound in chains, close tied;
Bereft of reason I remain while life endures

13. And my heart throbs and flutters for her sake;
I see she has consumed my flesh, my heart, my brain,

14. Naught is left save my bones and arteries;
So do not blame me if I perish. Rather take pity

15. On me; for loss of the soul brooks no excuse;
And over my grave, when I die, write the words:

16. "Slain by a cheek and an eye," and death has found him a lover true;
To God I complain of what I suffer from love,