1. That bird - why is it so distraught?
It neither stirs nor sings its tune.

2. It used to whisper something to the ear of dawn -
What was it telling dawn?

3. O bird! In your plumage there is a glow
From my beloved, confusion and withering;

4. You intended something but it undid you -
Can I reach my beloved in any way?

5.
I look with a glance that would

6. Rend its heavy curtains asunder;
O messenger of my beloved! After long waiting,

7. Is there anyone but you to send?
O messenger of my beloved! How fares my love -

8. Is what the slanderers claim really true?
O messenger of my beloved! Tell my love

9. I am, like him, a captive in illness.

10. Return to him and say my heart is
Like my face, and my night is long.

11. Would that my wings could fly like yours, O bird,
And that my eyes were unknown and obscure!

12.
Then I could see him, though no eyes saw me,

13. And he could see me, and no guard would sleep.
O messenger of my beloved! O happiest of creatures! Go slowly!

14. For you will leave him all too soon.

15. In you there is a flutter from him,
And on your feathers, a shadow from his lashes falls;

16. And a yearning weighs upon your wings,
And a rapture flows from his heart, untethered.

17.
O messenger of my beloved! When night falls,

18. And stars dissolve on the horizons,
And the valley grows dark, and the graceful visions

19. In the distances fade and disappear;

20. And eyes in Layla's abode start to slumber,
Except one pair shrouded by a tear;

21. Say to Layla: I saw him remaining constant,
A dreaming gaze, and a chaste heart yet.

22.
That love - though lovers may vanish from her face,

23. It will not vanish.
The scroll of veins was sealed by it,

24. Interwoven with the most precious of our blood.

25. O messenger of my beloved! No, do not tell him,
For his boundless grief is enough.

26. Do not tell him what you saw, do not try
To explain, for explanations only exacerbate the pain.

27.
Tell him: his love flows through my veins,