1. Since you left, my only comforts are endurance and patience,
Else my sighs are hotter than embers, my eyelids pouring faster than rain.

2. I wonder - does your nearness cause distress?
Alas, between us lies barren wilderness.

3. Perhaps fate, which parted us,
Will restore the life we knew, unawares.

4. Then we’d roam those lowlands, gazing
At gardens gliding by, and rivers.

5. We’d climb where between two crags prospects open
Of pools stretching to the shore from sweet lakes.

6. We’d scent the breezes of a night
Fragrant with herbs and flowers.

7. Remembering that, though she and I are parted,
The lover must burn with memories.

8. But my love for you - for through you I loved her -
Has taken root deep in heart and breast.

9. For she was only beautiful because of your beauty,
And beauty needs perfume's exhalation.

10. Rapt, I gaze at the full moon and the slender branch -
Has a light dawned on that branch to gladden all people?

11. Has the moon emerged from behind her clouds?
Is there, between the dunes, a race-course fit for steeds,

12. Where the brown snakes slough their skins?
The fast I vowed against our reunion:

13. Ten more days now extend into a month.