1. Oh nights, how long has passion persisted in me, robbing me of reason!
Give the longing one his passion back, give it back!

2. Can our meeting be forgotten while you are sad,
Your head bent under the burden of distress and wear?

3. I say, though my comfort has been denied like
A tired babe who takes the cradle as his pillow,

4. Come to an open bosom and helpful arms,
The beloved’s refuge where passion knows no bounds.

5. With my soul I swear, and by these tresses
That tumble over ivory skin so fair,

6. That stray as passion wills, passion decrees,
That lean upon one cheek or hide another.

7. And by those creeping vines, those clusters white
As virgin fancies, gracing viney boughs.

8. Oh, what cherished darkness you have brought me,
Where absence gleams like fortunes golden tide!

9. Behold, all beauty in the wild but serves
The eyes that slay, the forehead and the stride

10. And all the grace that life can bear but wakes
The wretched lover’s plaint, the servant’s plea.

11. Naught rouses my heart for you but butterflies
That dance above a bank of roses red,

12. Formed of sheer light and dew, that skim
The garden bowers and on rose beds sleep.

13. You know my pain, my master, and my lord,
This killing longing and this thirst that kills!

14. The shrine is empty now of prayers;
No worshipper keeps vigil after me.

15. We stop, the parting moment nears; what stance
Can brave the parting now? Endurance fails!

16. Horror and severance mass their fearful ranks
Sorrows and passions in a weltering crowd

17. Hot, panting breaths, slow strangling misery,
Embracing arms and murmurs closely pressed,

18. A speechless throng doomed to eternal hell
With not a hope of peace or cool reprieve.

19. Oh Aika, passion’s shade has clothed my heart
In a verdant robe of spring, a place of joy.

20. But only the ghost of a puzzling love remains
On steps obscured, in corners wrapped in black,

21. Lingering, hesitating, true to its word,
Then turning crushed beneath the promise sworn,

22. Consigning me to darkness and the grave,
Where the death rattle stirs my pallid face,

23. Abandoning me to the universe, a beast
Whose fangs mangle me in the lonely night.

24. As if above my Egypt, shadows thicken
In the gloom of misfortunes bleak eclipse,

25. Stagnant, obscure, hushed, forlorn,
Enwrapped by the hidden folds of space.

26. As if the Nile’s own heavens have known
No upheaval, no warning crash of storms.

27. Can terror truly reign while consciences sleep
Safe in faith’s refuge, giving thanks, and praise,

28. And faithful hearts rest reassured
In the compassion of the One, the Last?

29. Can this resplendent Eden that I know
Be the eternal life I breathe and taste,

30. Turn—when darkness falls enclosing it—
To a vaporous dream of silence and decay,

31. A whore’s thin dress, a peddler’s booth
Where the wretched soul barters his bread for hay,

32. While the lamp stands like a guardian there
Watching over secrets, wakeful, dignified,

33. As if it were Takiyya rapt devout
In nightly prayers or fasting for the faith?

34. Oh you, watcher over manners in this life,
Your day was spent seeking life’s bare needs;

35. Rocks were your pillow, earth your bed,
And for cover you had but a threadbare gown;

36. A carriage passes on some hidden errand,
Its curtains hiding its secrets from the world,

37. Bound for unknown lands, tearing the night,
Its lightning flashing distant as a spark.

38. When will this misery lift from the alleys
Filled with hunger, patience, sweat and grief?

39. A dog paws through rubble; a wild cat wakes,
The guard sleeps, and the soldier wanders dreaming.

40. Oh Egypt, your nights have no bard to sing them,
No one to hear your lonely poet’s songs.

41. I left you, time wore away our dream;
Pity one whose necklace is pulled apart!

42. Losing you was like losing the spring
And all its bounty; I go back to pain and care.

43. It was no paltry thing I lost in you;
You are no slight loss borne easily.

44. I took my guidance from your eyes:
How can you leave me to this blinding night?

45. I came to you for rain: How can you leave me
In this harsh desert of dry peaks and stones?

46. I came for help: How can you abandon me
To this world and all that time will bring?

47. I came to you for healing: How forsake me
When only bone and soul and flesh stay sound?

48. This red death dancing in my blood, that white death Glorying in my skin–and you could ease my load!
When buildings fall, you bolted them together;

49. Time had no power to batter me down.
I cried for help and you answered my cry,

50. Though battlefields stretch between us today.
I had a way into your heart and love’s home;

51. You closed it off: I stand exiled, denied.
Greetings to you, whose eyes have harvested

52. Such tenderness and grace for me to reap
If glance of yours means sword and death for me

53. Still you both kill and you revive the slain
Once drawn they show no mercy in their aim

54. Sheathed, they kill more sweetly and in secret
Greetings to my heart that knows your will; if this Slaughter’s your intent, it welcomes its fate!

55. Cloaked in night when passion calls me back,
I show a side of me you’ve never seen

56. Head bowed or cradled in my arms, the longing
And desire I own surpass all bounds.

57. I kiss within my heart that space you filled,
The wound I speak to, close or far away.

58. O house where one lived whom I adored! A greeting
On this noblest place of noblest days,

59. Those sweet past evenings, that hallowed company
Round love’s hearth where hearts poured freely forth,

60. Where poets bared their souls in verse that cut
Through flesh and bone to earn immortal life.

61. There Baudelaire knew sadness, Verlaine grief,
Messaih heartbreak, tribulation, woe;

62. Al-Mutanabbi’s raging hurt and cries
Of the oppressed, the stolen thing’s lament!

63. Tears so scalding they melt solid rock: if they die
They carve their names in implacable stone.

64. Why should they care if they weep or suffer,
When the tears of misery purchase glory?