1. Beautiful one! Your foot is in the stirrup
And your hands fiddle with the book

2. While I, thirsty for your drink
My saliva was my drink

3. Beautiful one, my turmoil increased
I wanted to lessen my turmoil

4. Beautiful one, that hour of yours
When you turned was part of my requests

5. I tried to make it the excuse
For my rubbing against and approaching you

6. In vain, for you realized what
The shells wanted from the cores

7. You were wise, daughter of
A father whose nest gathered crows

8. The humiliation of that question I drank
So you were stingy even with an answer

9. I did not know before this
Kindness what the kindness of accord was

10. Beautiful one, my request was not difficult
If what is with you is like what is with me

11. But with you there is flirtation and play
And its magic and youth’s blood

12. While with me there is nothing that equals
My ugliness except decay

13. And the line of old age is like
Fodder prepared for burning

14. Beautiful one, and the world and you
And whoever is on it will not last

15. What was a reason for approaching
Became a reason for avoiding

16. If he walks in my chest ridge,
A rod of embers from matchsticks

17. Then I would go to my solitude
Like an aged crescent waiting

18. Beautiful one, passion
And ardors are of my business and custom

19. I am a bee that sucked from the flowers
The soft resin from the buds

20. And threw it as honey that sweetens
The bitterness of every misfortune

21. Beautiful one, if love and passion
Were to be taken by force

22. There would have been, between me and you
The closeness of hammer and nail

23. Rather, the distance between the two horizons
Would have been, and I would have returned to my sanity

24. We would have been, as far as can be seen
Impossible to attract to each other