1. Is your smiling mouth a garden of flowers,
Or the sweet scent of musk in a perfumer's shop?

2. Your flirtatious glance—is it a cunning sorcerer
Or the decree of Fate on the day of Siffin?

3. Your thin mustache—does it resemble the cold,
Or is it a lightning flash of your pleasure that pulls me close today?

4. Whenever a pearl appears to me in order from it,
I scatter the pearls of my tears unrestrained.

5. The water of your cheek—is it wine in a goblet
That beautifully glimmers and glows?

6. Your soft, supple body—is it a tender branch
That gently sways over the dunes of Yabreen?

7. When the passing breeze bends and shakes it gently,
Where is the iron rod in such softness?

8. A body God molded when He shaped it
From the water of a pearl while people are of clay.

9. Far be it from God to attribute
Or ascribe the beauty of the eye’s pupil to a human!

10. The hand of beauty opened his brocade robe
And sorcery emanates spellbindingly from it in cups.

11. When the water of youth flowed through it,
It opened the rose of beauty or the rose of gardens.

12. Alas for my heart! It has been consumed
By ardent love’s passionate longing and complaint.

13. It turns for me a sick glance that kills me at times,
Then revives me again in those eyes.

14. I ransom my soul for him from every misfortune,
Though he cannot ransom me from them.

15. I have no fortune with him except the eyes
Of one who stays up shedding tears of yearning for his hands to caress me.

16.
I pretend in vain to gratify myself in his love,

17. Though in his passion there is nothing to avail me.
How many reproachers desired to blame me, and I said,

18. “Do not blame me, for blame only tempts me.”
They said, “You have lost the path of righteousness.” I said,

19. “May righteousness delight you, but passion delights me.”
His love is enough for me; I desire no substitute.

20. So I emerged from it with a fortune not fleeced.
By God! I have never felt cramped as long as I lived through it.

21. So leave me today—it fulfills me and makes me tender.
How many sighs does the fire borrow as its kindling,

22. And agonies that crept under my ribs to confide in me!
How much painful, heartrending anguish and worries

23. That do not wear out amid desolation—yet they wear me out!
An obsession I have indulged in every fatal thing,

24. And I continued to flounder in its horrible unknowns.
I plunged into the swirling dusts of death boldly

25. And said to the sorrows of agony, “Acquaint me!”
What is wrong with my tearful compliance in its passion, and why

26. Does my patience in it not bring me what I desire?
It was as if my tears, when their channels were blocked,

27. Were distraught sorrows squeezed inside a grieving soul.
Alas, Abu Qasim! Why am I thirsty while in

28. Your hands lies my drink—if only you wished, you could water me!
What prevents you from the passions of one broken,

29. Infatuated with your love—poured out, drunk with you?
Be however you desire, for I have no recourse. Even if

30. I do not touch intimacy and closeness from you,
You are my life, and I am not turned away from you.