1. How strange that I endure
When love has rent me through

2. None suffer as I do
From passion which destroys and yet endures

3. What can survive when eyes
No longer shed their tears?

4. So great was my love's spear
That split my soul with agonizing fears

5. Would that my brother faced
The fate that is my lot

6. And counselled me "Make not
Haste to destroy yourself" - but such he disgraced

7. I raged and vented wrath
When he approached to guide

8. "For love" I testified
"Can master me, however it may scathe"

9. I have a Lord who may
Yet free me, though you'd bind

10. A moon amid the stars
My breast has split in twain to bear its scars

11. His hips provoke desire
His waist folds and entices

12. When he begins to walk
His hips sway gracefully as they rock

13. A hue that shames the wine
And leaf, so delicate

14. A love none else could sate
Has squandered all my years and sealed my fate

15. Clench your fist in passion's name
And beg for union's sake

16. To some it joy did make
To others misery, as God ordained

17. I roamed from land to land
Seeking the bleakest clime

18. And split the night in quest
Of camels striding on with stately crest

19. Past plains of dun and gold
I journeyed without rest

20. To where my love was blessed
With faith and poetry's encomiums best

21. For his unstinting hand
He's mocked as being crazed

22. But where his feet have grazed
The land blooms forth in glory unsurpassed

23. And if I say, or wish
That truly I could tell

24. The Niles flow from your palms,
Their streams cleft in twain by your love's spells

25. You curse my father's name,
Yet you're renowned each day

26. For your open hand, and he
Who slanders should be cloven clean in twain!

27. Ja'far donned the plumes
Of glory, soaring high

28. Above all Quraysh clans
Quintessence of honor free from tie

29. He glides as smoothly as
A steed who by none is passed