1. O my heart, why do you not cease
Yearning for a beauty who wandered in her fancy?

2. My anguish - how I grieve
For her! How can her lover not weep for her?

3. I spent the evening far from her land.
I wanted none but her.

4. My anguish - because we're parted!
O if only my heart had ceased!

5. Alas, how could it, even were I to say:
“Make your choice - let it be none but her!”

6. If only my heart could
Fly on wings of passion to her!

7. She appeared in place untrodden,
Pouring passion into my heart that longed for her.

8. So I call her name
That she may answer if I call to her.

9. How excellent, how excellent,
If she would show herself to you, her eyelids lowered,

10. Purer than any mortal man has seen -
Blessed is He who created her!

11. She is like a sun appearing
In the land for him alone who saw her,

12. Or a pearl with the caliphs
None knows who retrieved it.

13. Her cheek is like myrrh:
Its sheen breathes perfume when she turns her face.

14. As I see and reckon,
Without having tasted her mouth.

15. She had with us a frail
Desire - its strength was in her.

16. And if I bowed before her glance,
Following her pleasure,

17. She would show herself. Would that we'd never parted!
For she wiped her from my breast.

18. It's as if I'm a stranger
In a salty wasteland that burned her trace.

19. My tongue is dry; its saliva
Exhausts me, its sound echoes.

20. Thirsty, I let down my bucket -
Fearing death in its hollow.

21. I spread its rope and my soul
Is exhausted by its intense heat.

22. Until when it was raised up and
Its shadow lengthened, it slipped from its moorings,

23. So it fell, and I fell after it,
Feeling for its coolness.

24. I poured out my soul in it
As the soul reaches its end.