1. I tormented my soul with love unworthy,
And left a heart burning in my absence.

2. Had I been reasonable toward suffering
I'd have steeled my heart through time's expanse.

3. And I'd have filled poems' seas brimful
Wandering, drowned in blame's echoes.

4. But my heart is like one who hurts others,
Making up flaws if perfection's seen.

5. It throws away all of love's religions
If lovers' faith spreads and is kept.

6. Like a date-stone in a palm tree owned by none,
Fronds furnish perches till stones split.

7. Or like an arrow in fierce warriors' hands-
If the bow curves from fear, off flies the shaft.

8. Vacillating....watchful.....wavering.....
Each whim has an uneasy dream.

9. If the wind opposes it, it pays no heed,
And (breezes) like perfume through it slip.

10. We had agreed, in the shadows of intimacy,
That the torment of loving a beauty was created.

11. Words fled, and under her whips fell asleep,
Seeking torment as if we hadn't agreed.

12. The magic of conversation won over his curiosity
If, for listening ears, a secretly heard voice flowed.

13. Had he known that love's outcome
Is a hook on which fancy hangs, pierced,

14. He'd have mustered resolve in ardor's breast
And pondered profoundly the promises made.

15. No harm to my heart had I remained as I was,
A spirit drowned in weeping, choking to death!

16. Or been a lock of hair by dreaminess touched,
Smit by seduction's spell, body bent, desiring.

17. I'd have cast the scent of fingers over it
And it would have sighed, the flesh silently sweating.

18. And its beauty would have awakened from rapture––
While the heart, from treachery, did not awaken.

19. I unleashed my voice into the horizon, to call it back.
The horizon narrowed; the heart overflowed and could bear no more.

20. I freed every stranger who'd lodged within it
But from its darkness it did not escape.

21. I destroyed it to get a soul that for it
–Capricious souls’––if destroyed, would still live!

22. I burdened it when for my chest I tore it;
It slit my tunic, caring nothing if stolen.

23. So I left it when it met a base woman,
Remaining to mourn: would we hadn't parted!