1. Imagination still impassions him,
Its lights draw you near though you're far,

2. However did it find this tenderness, as if
Its necklace and earrings were of tenderness,

3. When the distance vanishes through nearness,
And its people bid farewell and depart,

4. What a boon-friend! His cheek appears rosy
In sleep, my wine moistening his mouth,

5. He disclosed to passionate yearning a secret—
The outpouring of my heart met its yearning,

6. It abandoned dawn's first blush, but the flow
Of tears is its dawn-prayer and dusk-prayer,

7. "Take my advice," the adviser says to his friend,
Veiling irascibility in advising a friend,

8. I said, "Comfort can be hoped for," but do not hope it,
I said, "Patience can be endured," but cannot endure it,

9. In the land of tenderness, lightning established
A castle wherein its thunder and lightnings dwell,

10. What an excellent lodging for distraction is the one
Whose morning ramblings were its distraction,

11. A garden we knew wherein its valleys wrought
Blossoms whose sheen glowed exquisitely,

12. Its clouds dragged their hems over it
Till in its copious rain its cutting hail pelted,

13. As if at that time it were a lover
Whose passion a longing for union with the beloved,

14. A fragrance—the bloom of the land is its camphor,
A repeller—the yellow of the meadows its colocynth,

15. How often in it one mingled for me a goblet
Like a supple branch made to wave gracefully,

16. She offered it golden, so when it was shaken
It was as if its red embers flared up in the vessel,

17. And when the lutes trilled, their strings
Laughing with the drinking-cups for the draft,

18. I would blend its draft with its wine—
To me its draft and its wine were equal.