1. Veil your beauty, don your robes, conceal yourself,
And hide those allurements of hearing and sight.

2. Though you veil your face, its radiance beams still;
The eye knows the beauty of the eye at a glance.

3. Come, wander afar and flee me with haste,
Deafen your ear to my words and my tale.

4. Avert your eyes from me; disdain me now;
Spare no thought for my tears or my vigil.

5. Ask not after my bonds that are loosed and lost;
Seek not to free my reins from affliction's grasp.

6. Forget my love and heed not my misery;
Reck not my torment nor loss of repose.

7. Rend now my heart so I feel no regret—
O my wish and my goal and my quest's end!

8. But do what you will, I'll not waver at all
From loving you, nor will I mankind appraise.

9. I will track you in wastes and valleys far-strewn,
On the land, on the sea, on all trodden paths.

10. I will roam though borne aloft on a bier,
Dash on though driven into the fiery rain.

11. Till earth's ends resound, telling the legend
Of my passion, my soul facing danger's tide.

12. Till the world has retold, marveling in its roam,
The tale of your love over lands and climes,

13. And you know that in love I have triumphed indeed,
After my struggle deserving of victory.

14. Thereupon, my queen, your proud sovereignty
Cannot forestall you from following my track.

15. Of what use is the beauty's composed inaction
But a lure to mishaps, like ships in the storm?

16. So shall your frowning face be softened in time,
And this night unveil its enchanting display.

17. You will know me as one in love's fields unmatched,
Who all but seizes his trophy from Fortune's palm.

18. My passion is peerless but to worship pure
Of the devout before God's immaculate shrine.

19. Those who love have witnessed I stand alone,
A marvel of lovers in this modern age.

20. My feats in love's lands are famed far and wide
Like the flames of night clear to the onlooker's eye.

21. Though overcome, maddened by love, I feel no fright;
Ah, if only my strength had not failed me here!

22. You lovers frantic, why have you blindly sought
To vie with my passion, to follow my trail?

23. Fools, you hoped to o'ertake me—impossible!—
Stop, stop! You cannot sustain the love that consumes me,

24. Driving me on heedless of danger extreme.
A deep sea you have entered and drowned, poor souls,

25. Ere reaching its shores, devoid of rafts or oars.
Love's art is intricate; none can perfect it

26. Save the pure of heart, patient through vigil and pain.
Not with blooms and braided locks will you lure

27. The nymphs of the palace into amorous sport.
Nay, but through travail and breaking point reached

28. Have I sought the soul's dislike for the form.
Not by roving the bounds spreads the snare

29. That leads the prey to the hunter lying in wait.
Mere lovers of air you are, purposeless,

30. While of love in you no trace or vestige lurks!
So gaze at me now if you wish, and I will expound

31. The state of my passion; come listen to my tale.
I fell in love, and for love there is no cure

32. Save patience—but patience, alas, has left me.
I sucked it in, a babe, with the teat, no wonder

33. I have grown up with it, nor reached maturity.
The enemy I desire has ravaged full many

34. A lover who welcomed its grip without excuse.
It storms the world—no walls can resist

35. Save crawling in vaults and digging in pits.
Before it God's servants are helpless toys,

36. Ever tossed between purity and foul morass.
One day it flies us to the sky on fancy's wing,

37. Another it hurls us down to the hawk of woe.
A crazed architect working rushed and confused,

38. Who builds and destroys from dusk to dawn's break.
It misses the long-awaited in a moment's blink

39. And brings the unexpected without any warning.
I planted the garden of hope merrily

40. But my life passed fruitless, no harvest was borne.
It melted me effortlessly for a singing girl

41. Who, when she appeared, seemed no mortal person.
As if she had come from the world unseen, masked,

42. Not in mist - nay, but in light and sparks.
One of the angels yet no wings she bore

43. Save her robes, her scripts and her raven hair.
I'll not forget the day we met in her convent,

44. My heart dancing to the strings of the lute.
Together we shared our space under the sky

45. In a garden of joy amidst blooms and trees.
At a gathering of beauties she sat humble

46. To her charm, which unfurled the flag of conquest.
I could - if it pleased providence - have gained

47. Despite hostile fortunes my wish that day.
A day when we drank from goblets frolicsome

48. With spirits and images wrought round their rims.
But she recoiled, seeing my drunkenness, refusing

49. To accept my excuse - and I was innocent!
Off she went in a sulk, comparing my intoxication

50. To her sober friend's refreshing perfume.
She stamped in anger on the wine cups,

51. Like the full moon stomping the small stars.
So I was left deprived at midday, the sun tripped

52. Till I thought the cosmos itself endangered.
Like a shy gazelle she rose and fled from me

53. In aversion, refusing to glance my way.
Then blind jealousy rose in an iron clump

54. Of a heart cold as stone and abandoned me -
Vanquished by her love, weeping, complaining,

55. My plight exposed and my secret no more.