1. Your call, O heart, enough calling
Will you not stop giving me misery?

2. I am thirsty, no mirage has shone
In the desert except I thought it water

3. While you are a moth to every light
You followed, and every flash that lit

4. O heart, say to her when we parted
In sorrow, not hoping to meet again

5. I loved you, though I never praised you in verse
But I bled for you profusely

6. If for love of you I lost my soul
I won't lose for you my blood in vain

7. Your love was my place of worship
As though with you I reached the heavens

8. I shed humanity for it
But did not shed my dignity

9. So I did not bow there hypocritically
Nor crouch in slavery and humility

10. Rather, I loved you with free love
That dies when and how it wishes

11. And my beloved was the world of my hopes
His love my place of worship, his home my Kaaba

12. Who once walked on roses for him
My path was thorns and his steps

13. Who once gave drink to a thirsty soul
From the cup of life I gave him to drink

14. My heart fluttered for him shaken
Like a lamp's flutter when its oil is done

15. He asked me and I denied him
And folded the page of my love for him

16. I came to the blessed Nile complaining
Of my time and its many troubles

17. And wiped my hands and brow with its water
That I might calm the fevered mind's storm

18. And sat scattering a packed pouch
Of memories, new and old

19. Yearning for a pure unsullied love
And youth whose time passed free of blame

20. Friends and companions betrayed me but I
Kept my promise to them and forgave generously

21. Will the weak grass frighten me, I who
Gave my hide to thorns that pierced deep?

22. And if my heart forgot its place
Smell me and feel my pride's troubles flutter

23. I carry my pouch defiantly
Of my time, my enviers and foes

24. I bow my head to God's throne, never bowed
In humiliation, under the great dome