1. Take towards springtime the paths of bliss, and ask
If she will accept me should missives reach her -

2. That she may glance at me after aloofness,
And staunch the tears of a woeful lover.

3. O beauty of a garden wherein my love is pleased
If rain clouds weep, mimosa flowers smile -

4. With their perfume at al-Hirrān they treat me kindly.
By it pure milk has whitened his face,

5. Lest my eyelids blacken if cares distract me,
Like a full moon appearing though lashes are its mansion,

6. While my heart and eyes are stages of ordeal.
For him I decline and conjugate with my love -

7. Only he has found in me a kinswoman.
When winter's rigours afflict me,

8. I emerge eating hot food - so he provides me steps.
I break the broad bean's pod against its match

9. And eat its heart when faced with it.
If clotted cream I espy, yellowing his face,

10. With a drop seen like torrents - so let me eat!
O Nile water severed by bone-piles

11. Will communion with you return in life?
Birds with every care have alighted on you -

12. Their entrails filled with joy from you.
They swell with the water's surge as they swim about,

13. Glorifying the Merciful - thus their forms.
While in your depths the fish are like

14. Stars on horizons of rising and setting.
And though you've killed them in the hunt, have you picked them out

15. With your eyes? Tell me - for eyes can be deadly.
Since you killed me, you gave me life - how wondrous

16. That a murdered woman brings me back to life!