1. How did Majnun die? Did Layla rejoice at night?
Ask these sad deserts what the wind told Qays last night

2. And how that fanciful vagrant poet lived his years
Friend of gazelles in the desert, savior of sands, beasts, and waste

3. And specter of leanness and illnesses.
Love crushed his sensitive eager heart

4. So he lived life without abode
Above those sands he recited verses of his passion

5. To every madwoman who walked by
Depicting on the page of sand whatever

6. Sorrow, longing, and yearning he had
For wherever Layla had tread in bygone years

7. When she herded the deer and Qays herded his sheep
And she would sing, and he would sing back

8. Her voice reverberating on those tawny sands
Where gazelles frolicked and dashed.

9. Oh what agony for that fervent poet! What had fate ordained?
The joy of youth faded, the valley withered, its flowers dried up

10. Only a grave remained at the foot of the hill
Beneath which Layla's traces faded

11. Above it a rosebush,
Which the shadows made its shade

12. And Qays remained tortured, crying
For the remainder of his battered life

13. Lying at the edge of the grave, ceaselessly complaining
To the breeze and the clouds

14. Wishing for the night of death, calling it
With the sweetest names

15. And singing death the most beautiful songs
Of his passion beneath the darkness and light

16. Then one morning death came
And Qays fell lifeless in its grip

17. With only the sighing wind and mournful hooting owl weeping for him.
Oh hearts of lovers, let Qays' tragedy suffice for passion

18. For this is life - it grants the living only torment and horrors
It deceived us with love, yearning and memories

19. Leaving behind only delusions
A wretched world seething with sin

20. Living between passion and darkness.