1. O quarter that has seen its people leave,
And become empty and desolate without inhabitants,

2. Are you a refuge? Where are your people of passion?
You know, even if silent to the questioner,

3. Did they travel to exhibit themselves? Or set out for war?
Woe to you! Or have they moved on to other dwellings?

4. To which of God's lands have they moved? For I
Am still a shepherd to the mixed common folk.

5. My friend said: What is this standing still in an abode,
Like a title page left barren?

6. The downpour has changed its promise to the meadows,
Along with the rains or the weaving of the whirlwinds.

7. The two ages have alternated upon it until it seems
As if the top of its earth is sifted through the sieves.

8. And each rumble of thunder is a churning, rumbling
Cloud that has a creeping serpent extending from the ground.

9. So even if you call out, except for prolonged
Sorrow, you will get no answer from those you ask.

10. So be resolute, connect and make your visit a joining,
Goodness to you. And cut off whoever does not reciprocate.

11. I said to him: The love of killing and its dust,
Contentment. And Lord of the Throne, O killer of me,

12. Contentment. It has shot my heart but did not pass through
And did not shoot the hearts of the fickle ones.

13. With the glance of death, not with a bow and arrows,
Nor an arrow more painful than the twisting of souls.

14. For whom after her I love rhymed prose and mount
My steed and resist the slaying of the virgins.

15. And I travel, when the beloved of passion makes me travel,
And I stay up late, under the working starry nights,

16. And I weep, in the early daybreak, with the lovesick one, the moon,
When the moon calls before dawn or at nightfall.