1. If my passion could find its way
to describe my ardour,

2. it would have been recorded in books from old times
and I would have let my pens rest,

3. and my ideas emptied of creativity.
I long for you - and my skin has not

4. been struck by the arrows of separation or spears of discord.
No day has passed when I do not see you

5. without feeling profound sorrow.
I look towards your house,

6. yearning with my eyes for the beloved neighbour.
When I aspire, passion twists my neck,

7. when I am ambitious, it exhausts me.
When I turn away, only my body leaves -

8. my heart remains still.
Who can fulfil the hopes of my limbs

9. when hopes themselves often disappoint?
An eye denied a beholder

10. its vision of you - dissatisfied with any substitute.
Hearing pursues an ongoing

11. dialogue in the place of intimacy.
My body seeks company

12. like the attachment of the letter lām to the letter alif.
And my greedy hopes hunt down their quarry

13. like partridges amongst the thorns.
O you who have burdened with debt and loans

14. the one whose invitation you have accepted -
do not be excessive in your affection, relying

15. on my generosity - for stinginess destroys nobility.
The paper has come to me dressed

16. in wonders like pearls in oyster shells.
So your letter is like the spring -

17. the meadows are not left without flowers.
It has cast the burden of obligations from my shoulders

18. that my patience discharged on my behalf.
The courtesy you showed me collects