1. I want your company though my heart refuses,
I reproach you though my soul is full of blame,

2. I abandon you so sleep abandons me,
And darkness burns me with sorrow and grief.

3. I remember you when I see every beauty,
My eyes overflow and my heart melts,

4. I complain of my torment in loving you,
Yet I reward you with love for torturing me.

5. I know your habit is my neglect,
Why then have I made love my habit?

6. How often is life, like a reproached beloved, complained of,
Yet the soul is filled with love and blame for it.

7. Do you repay my intimacy with avoidance?
I blamed you for love, and that was enough blame.

8. So all coquetry among people is a sin,
If you consider avoidance of me a sin.

9. I took your love from my eyes and heart,
So my eyes called but my heart obeyed.

10. You are the epitome of beauty,
My life for a mould containing you and a heart!

11. I love you when you incline your neck languorously,
And fear that languor may become a habit.

12. They said consolation and tranquility are in a substitute,
But I spurned the substitute - it was difficult.

13. I returned to guidance, hoping I would be appeased,
But why am I still troubled without you?

14. When a cup does not dispel my cares,
The hand of the cupbearer has clearly failed.

15. Yet I am more forgiving than one who sought it,
And more generous than cloistered virgins when drinking.

16. I have a soul I wish to pacify that it may be pure
As a rose whose fragrance has been released by the breeze.