1. Wings of darkness passed, and my heart
Kept on throbbing steadily.

2. Sleep forsook my eyelids, so my soul
Exists confused, losing its way.

3. I am in a narrow, gloomy closet,
Whose walls are soaked with my tears and sighs.

4. Were light to enter it, it would fear
The color of its paint.

5. Before me the lantern glows,
Though hellish is its gleam.

6. I see it asking about my sorrows—
If God had granted speech to its tongue!

7. My heart feels a throbbing in my blood
Like the boiling of a volcano in eruption.

8. And I see between my fingers a coil
Of our vanishing lifetimes like smoke.

9. Sleepless am I in my gloom while my beloved
Sleeps in peace, not minding my misery.

10. The wings of slumber shed their charm
And melt dreams on the eyelids.

11. Midnight impartially hears my heart
Complaining in the stillness of darkness.

12. Madness has touched it, else but for
My ribs, it would have burst out of my body.

13. I hear the night singing in space
And the rustling of leaves making its melodies—

14. That is the song of life the night sings
Through the tongue of darkness on its branches.

15. I see the darkness of black night like an army,
The stars in space its aides.

16. A procession of jinn brides walking
To meet Satan in his hall.

17. They say whatever he and his passion dictate,
However his fingers and melodies fancy.

18. When his soul called for the mercy of love,
Desire responded to the call of his soul.

19. Oh, but if they knew all the things
The heart has hidden in its closets!

20. If they but knew what a lover who takes
Refuge in Lebanon suffers!

21. If they realized that nature is just
And injustice has tilted its scales!

22. They would have permitted his blasphemy
And sanctioned the sorrowing blasphemer to stay in his blasphemy.

23. Lord, forgive me! I have lost my senses
So my feelings roam about confused.

24. Be gentle with me and have mercy on my heart
When you see it has strayed from faith.

25. My heart is a harbor for every torment.
Grief has lodged in it without even asking leave.

26. So it's as though I was created in the universe only
To drink from the devil's cup.

27. My friend, if you want to know my heart,
My forehead weeps to make it plain.

28. The heart outlined its phantom there, so look!
They know a book by its title.

29. My friend, look at the garden of my life.
See how decline has crept into its vines.

30. My youth was worn down by hardships
That stripped it of its freshness and prime.

31. In my solitude I talk to a reed flute,
Rhapsodizing in the dark the magic of its words.

32. He was like me, but the grave took him
Before his time, his body worn out and sickly.

33. Poet of tears, is there any escape from tears
In an existence I'm cursed with from its treachery?

34. Did the universe fill my life with torment?
Is that why it yearned for its own winding sheets?