1. For the radiance of your beautiful face
And your slender figure in its flexing grace

2. For the lovely down that softly grows
Fairer than the fawn's upon the cheeks and nose

3. My passion wakened in its resting-place
And stirred the embers of my love to blaze

4. The dark-lashed eyes beneath those brows like bows
Assail my heart without relief or pause

5. Swiftly she came and sweetly, but soon turned
"Be off!" she said; harshly she spurned and spurned

6. "It may be," I replied, "that I sought Salma.
I am no wooer, far from all thought of palma."

7. My flowing tears bear witness to my pain,
And weep like fawns that ne'er know joy again

8. O loveliest girl, as gracious as the moon,
Take pity on me, if but in a dream or swoon;

9. And if too poor to help me, tell my brother Toss
To aid me soon and so relieve my loss,

10. For many a gift and favor has he sent
Till I were tempted to adopt his child unmeant.

11. None but my darling shall I ever wed,
Far be it from me what the slanderers said!

12. Long she denied, but sweeter for the ban
That which is lawful than what unlawful ran.

13. She chides me and I weep, remembering days
Of happiness and love, while our hearts were one in phase,

14. A babe at breast, so delicate and wan
His neck outshines the conjugal commonplace

15. To rock and fondle as she bids me do,
Then screams and claws me with vindictive view.

16. He laughs, then weeps, and clings to me in fright,
Ah me! I know not what will greet my sight.

17. The husband takes her when I turn away
And get no second night without a fee to pay;

18. With lessons and examples I tame down her pride
And curb her highfalutin airs till her stiff neck bend aside

19. She coughs all night, sings to suppress her pain,
And I behold her beauty in my dreams again

20. Her body to the ground, its mansions low and vile
Her nose upraised to heaven lofty pile

21. We shared: her heel became my head's repose
Her slipper's tip my pillow at the day's close