1. Give me your peace, my Salma, and your presence suffices me
For in it lies the survival of one who loves you

2. Life is renewed for a man by seeing you
And the memory of youth is revived by your singing

3. Your eyes drew me in until when
They flashed at me, your lips moved

4. And youth would be disdained if
An affliction from your blaze came upon me

5. And your hands showed me dancing
Double what your feet have shown

6. This one twists as threads tangle
And that one coils like a snare

7. Thoughts of you overcome me sometimes
So I retreat embarrassed and confused

8. My palms try to mimic your palms
And my steps tell of the impact of your steps

9. So I contract and expand
Sometimes coming together and sometimes clashing

10. And sometimes recoiling like a bird
Perched then startled off the wires

11. And one who doesn't know sees me as if
I am touched, and that may well be so

12. I love you, I want no reward
Except knowledge that I love you

13. Seek me out among the crowds when
They gather and mingle and clash

14. You will know me apart from them by my traits
And my devotion and confusion and absorption

15. Many a day in which worries hunt me down
Like the snare that catches a bird

16. And I see life written in black
So everything weeps

17. The specter of worries fills my soul
And pervades my room to me fully

18. You were no solace for my heart from
What I'm in except that I see you

19. We have complained of you - not to blame but
Love is not without a complainant

20. I have a heart - if it were permissible for my chest
To forget it one day, it could forget you

21. It rises above throughout the nights and nothing compares
To its rising when you are remembered

22. And at times it sees itself from despair of seeing you
Surrendering without moving

23. You are my Salma - and you were given reign like a Sassanid Queen
Gently, by the right of your King

24. And Hibah made a pact and you were
An example to follow in rule like her peers

25. So tend to the heart with the sanctity
You tend the reign - the possessions are collected

26. Open for me the door of joy for it is barred
And the door of joy for me is your lips

27. And dispel these worries and cheer
The sorrow on my face with your smiling face

28. In your two beautiful hands, if you will
Lies my surrender, and in your hands, my release

29. If you see the conversation distinguished by gentleness
And subtlety in you apart from others

30. And rhymes that sound sweet to the ear without
Rhymes that sing of the beauty of your equal

31. It's because I revere my love for you beyond
Reception except by a perceptive heart

32. And because your flair inspires genius
And the flint's spark from striking

33. This beauty, Salma, is the soul's nourishment
Without which it would perish

34. And I see those who blame it like one giving guidance
To the eloquent about silence

35. Or one hastening to dry up the river's water
Out of care for the fish

36. The riffraff, the riffraff; and the futile argument -
I seek your protection from their evil

37. They annoyed me to the point of disdaining beauty
Feeble souls of perception

38. People demand that others echo their passions
As steams become echoes

39. My friend preached asceticism to me about you
With these flimsy arguments

40. "You have rivals there, and what good is
A passion that is shared?"

41. I said: "You are wrong, I do not care - give it
As a rose grown among thorns

42. Do you see me shunning it, then give me
That in my feelings I share?"

43. I am this - I was never
In my sentiments and tendencies, owned

44. Besides, I am too proud to agree
In my taste with a group and echo them

45. I love what I desire, and whoever
Does not accept me, ruin awaits him

46. Since I existed, I was between myself
And these absurdities, locked in combat