1. My heart is captive and my teardrops unleashed
Passion has stripped it bare, my patience torn to shreds

2. The sweet faced one passed by, uncaring,
While I indulged in the agony his charm evokes

3. Love dispatched a dream, but it did not relieve
The sleepless longing in the lover’s eyes

4. If I confess I’ve no strength to be patient
He turns away, slamming shut hope’s door

5. He is a gazelle, a Turk, shying from company
Lest in love he be tied to another

6. His lineage is confirmed if you investigate
The Turks in glance, Arabs in eloquence

7. He threw off his cloak, which I mistook
For a branch of Arak clinging to his back

8. It joins his feet when he poses as a rider
But when he dismounts, he wraps it around his waist

9. It grew long and darker, so I imagined it
The night of his hair, and I remained ensnared

10. His beauty is a flowing stream, coursing through his cheeks
In which many a soul has drowned

11. He rises with his radiance above the moon
And with his soft gait above the swaying boughs

12. When he speaks or smiles, his mouth
Leaves not a soul that does not fall in love

13. In my heart, the embers of sorrow blaze
While from his lips, the water of life flows cool

14. Oh, his sweet water! And oh, my thirst!
Can I quench it? I pour till I steal a sip

15. Oh, reproacher! Make amends for what has passed
You do not fairly love if you deny this

16. You told me to seek out one like him, but
One like him cannot be found, it’s true

17. Languid-eyed one, you scorched my thoughts,
And I melted like ice, consumed with yearning

18. Time passes, and I do not visit your abode
For at the meeting place, spies abound

19. I wish to plunge in tears to reach you
But I fear my feeble passion would drown

20. I want to breathe the cool breeze, but
I dread it blowing a consuming fire to you

21. As for my love for you, it lives
But in forgetting, you hold sway