1. The specter of my love passed by late at night awash
In tears, paying no heed while slumber made my eyelids sink.

2. Desire kept vigil by my side, his arms stripped bare
To stoke the fires in my heart but never quench the flame.

3.
I lay there as if hanging from the Pleiades, crying out

4. To one who knows and understands what I conceal inside.
If all God's creation tried describing this, their words

5. Would fall short of capturing the depth of all my longing.
O solace of my sorrows, o wellspring of my tears,

6. O woe is me! What did I find? What fires rage within?

7. Is it not enough that I sell my dignity for shame
And give away my pearls for nothing in return?

8. If she but granted me an ounce of love I bear for her,
I would be sated by less than half of her affection.

9. God, make my heart be one with hers that I might not
Transgress, before me or behind me, even by a hair.

10. God, give me patience for the blows that I've received,
You alone can nurse me whole and You alone relieve.

11. God, punish her with all the love that burns in me,
But not the way You punished Korah through the earth consumed.

12. When her tribe passes I avert my face in grief,
While both my eyes against their will pour down their tears.

13. My tongue betrays the secrets that my heart conceals
And yet at times it hides the tales my eyelids tell.

14. If all God's mortals lined up side by side, I would
Prefer her company alone to standing in their ranks.

15. I beg of you, do not destroy me by decree,
For I fear God if you pronounce me fit to die.

16. Yet I could swear off all women but your tribe,
With binding vows and oaths—my pledge to you, believe!

17. It is not death I want—when I depart, relief.
Rather, I speak that you may yet find cause to listen.

18. Without you I would never grace myself with jewels,
Without you I'd not string these verses line to line.

19. When the heart threatens flight like a wild doe,
I strike my chest and grip it firm between both hands.

20. It yearns to break away—if not for my ribcage,
It would have flown like lightning or sailed upon the wind.

21. As if its wings, when stirred by passion's swell,
Were the oars of a dashing boat that beat the drums.

22. Is there no path that leads into my heart? Perhaps
I'd trim its wings with shears and pull out feathered tufts!

23. When I recall our separation to my heart
It tortures me—now pushing me away, now pulling nigh.

24. Obeying till I say, “That's past,” but then it turns
And surely heads back to the shell and stony reef.

25. I fight my passion to defend my heart, as though
My heart and I grappled soldiers in a battle line.

26.
For what cause does this passion merit my blood,