1. My critics blame me among you, without benefit,
When they dispraise me, it brings me no solace.

2. They claim to guide me, but I see no
Comfort for my heart in your love.

3. O you who blame me, remember them again
And blame them, and take a pledge from me.

4. With the memory of them revive a heart aflame,
If it dies for a year, it will not cool.

5. If what he complains of from the heat of grief
Were fire, it would kindle, or flint that gives sparks.

6. Think not despair made me spineless, nor
Did remoteness make me forget love after nearness.

7. My pact with love for them is that I
Am intent on them always, pouring without cease.

8. I do not wake from love but to
Love again, and find no comfort though protracted.

9. I ransom a specter who visited my abode dejected,
Lost on his remote dwelling, how did he find guidance?

10. I knew him cheerful at dawn,
How then did he wander in the dark night?

11. My love-longing made me sleepless,
And dreams give no water to slake my thirst.

12. Then I shed tears like those stirred
By their specter renewing ecstasy.

13. With eyes half open I wipe my tears hoping
To see him awake and examine my couch.

14. Like one who missed what his hands grasped,
Or a finder who lost what he just found.

15. O beloved ones, blessed be your call
If only you answered the caller’s prayer.

16. After you the days have been hard on me,
Even resoluteness and composure.

17. My patience has no reinforcements after desire,
So woe to my tears, who augmented them?

18. Yet I never wished to quench passion’s blaze,
I sought but to kindle it and it flared up.

19. O fright of a bird that flew down on a branch,
So stirred by loss he seemed intoxicated!

20. I think he left behind loved ones, as I
Left you, or found the ecstasy that I knew.

21. Though his mournful song renews wounds in my heart,
I know not if he sang out of sorrow or elation.

22. But it stirs the sorrowful with its strains
When it sees the sorrowful envying the joyous.

23. Say to those glad at our separation,
And happy that fate turned against us and transgressed.

24. If fate brought us joy today, did you feel
Secure it would not bring us joy in you tomorrow?