1. My anguish grows beyond all eloquence
My heart is torn by parting's violence

2. Peace unto all I've loved, my comfort, my delight
Your ghosts haunt me through sleepless nights

3. Peace to one whom youth enslaves
Lost in longing, burnt in love's hot flames

4. Content with all the winds may bring
Beneath the shade of union sheltered, shaded from its sting

5. Yearning when lightnings blaze and fork
Down cheeks, soft as the gazelle's, tears fork

6. When the horses, thirsty, sniff the air
Seeking water soft as velvet, pure and rare

7. The nights when absence lit no fire
In the cool depths of my virgin desire

8. Whenever I wished, I courted the gazelle
Tame to my touch at morning, tame and docile still

9. Proud in the pride of youth, disdainful and apart
From all that humbles, wounds the heart

10. Until old age began to steal
Youth's glory, urging me to feel

11. Reluctantly I left the nights of youth
For mornings where the creeping cold's uncouth

12. Dawn broke and robbed my nights of ease
Would that dawn might have let my darkness be

13. I'll weep for youth with dewfall tears
Though weeping brings nor help nor ease

14. When spring and union blessed life's stage
Joy filled our days and decked youth's page

15. Had I not wept those tears, still in some chest
They would have stayed, mute, useless, unexpressed

16. Lightning has struck me. I shake, I quake
Like meadows hammered by the rain, unmanned, unmade

17. Dazed by this Hijazi lightning, undone, laid waste
Dawn breaks but brings no ease, no rest

18. My own forked lightning, my passion's fire
Consumes me, even as my tears expire

19. Only when the soft winds blow, soothing, kind
Across the biting north wind, rest I find

20. As if the morning brought me tidings dear
Of those I loved returning here

21. But no, my friends are gone beyond recall
No shadow shades me, love cannot enthrall

22. We broke our hearts on a mirage of air
Naught but barren grief for us was there

23. My burning sorrows wander without goal
Thinner than needles, piercing my soul

24. Those true to passion, heroes, knights of love
Could offer no relief, no balm remove

25. When a tribe stops up its ears to passion's claim
No hearing moves their hearts, their blood's to blame

26. They wept on ruins, mourned old homes
Their tears like dew spilled on broken domes

27. A moving lament, sighs in empty halls
Hearing the sentence of departure, heeding its calls

28. Passion's herald, spreading secrets aloud
With tears proclaiming love's fierce burning crowd