1. Layla sent a messenger that I stay aloof,
And not go near you all, that is best to do,

2. Lest prying eyes watch our love,
And belie us or in slumber miss the clue.

3. Some we trusted, to whom our secret we told,
When from them our love we hid, turned disloyal,

4. Not one of them the covenant upheld,
Nor tried, when they sought to break with us, gentler style.

5.
For women gossiped that to our vows we were fast bound,-

6. Yet such vows, if prolonged, turn interest cold.
Then I said, when my land seemed to me too strait around:

7. I am pressed by what is told; though eyes may getting old.

8. Your abode I shall shun, I said, yet my eyes thereto bend,
Know you not my profit lies with you, nor what love I spend?

9. I seem to turn straight eyes, but turn them not, on other men,
And if my eyes turn elsewhere, twisted are they then.

10. True are lovers whose love decay and time rend;
And my love in heart's core folded lies secret and sched.

11. I have told what widespread rumour widened and said,
And most of it in my breast bundled lies hid and read.

12. I told only that I forgot; lovers in image dwell
Of those they love, and after that fashion I as well.

13. So bar me not, nor long delay around me cast,
Shall I from land I love be prisoned and passed?

14. No visit of yours can I see in my place;
I am not one banned in despair to move or race.

15. No captive I in promise that I stay and bide,
Nor banned and despairing again afar to ride,

16. Like a hunter who eyes in the plain his game,
Now circles near, while it is he weaponless and lame,

17. Like a man at the pool the noon sun makes sick and burn,
He seeks the shade, but shade he finds not, nor place to turn.

18. In these fortunes the soul its death and life may scan,
And which of the two roads to death for it easier ran.

19. Shall I bear the hurt wherewith you my peace disturb and mar,
So you may destroy me, or dwell untroubled thus far?

20. How many a long night whose darkness like dankness spread,
The morning wind scattered, dripped and over us shed,

21. As if the bursten pipe what it gushed and blew
On earth's face a pebbled and foreign grain bestrew!

22. For love of you perils and night raid I sped,
By love of you to you with sword terror led.

23. I rode thereto a steed like tower wind could but stem,
A firm and round-backed steed, when the waterRaft stampede.

24. Stiff of shoulder, you think its back the crowbars cleave,
From its flanks the millstones with their rumbling roll and heave.

25. Down its forehead the forelock drips; from the vein's gate
Its tendons start, and neck bones swell articulate.

26. Like a wall whose clay the rain's flood crumbled and drove
With bricks well baked in order bound and grove.

27. A chestnut-bay the rider tries, and it paces proud, nibbling sweet,
While he strokes it, by its docile tameness fain and fleet.

28. Proud of neck, and fine of coat, it tasted not iron in heat,
Nor watched night the while for it saddle and breastplate meet.

29. If horses fail of men's hardness and their toils to greet,
Then their rider against war's brunt mailed is complete.

30. As we circle, lofty its mien seems to display
A grandeur, as of a king in his pride and sway.

31. It agrees with its fashioning, and is stablished at rest,
Pleased with its making, like He who made it, blest.

32. On its like did Layla and her family press,
Death drew nigh them, but God gives aid and redress!