1. With a clear, rhythmic chant, whose sunset intoxicates,
Sweet, drawing near the fragrance of musk.

2. As if an Indian merchant's mouse
Had brought me talk of you from a mouth,

3. No woman, Arab or non-Arab alike,
Has shredded my liver as she did

4. Who showed me her waist with a glance
Of her two wrists and bracelet.

5. A confidante whose father’s nobility humbles me,
Conqueror of the highest abode’s domes.

6. For if she thought me insolent, indeed she saw
My eyes like those of a corpse, sickly and bleak.

7. Did you sell my blood for its price?
If you are the sigh of a loveless lover.

8. I was but a captive imprisoned
By the blood of the sister of Kinanah's clan.

9. Oh sister of Kinanah’s clan, how
Stingy you are with healing the guiltless!

10. If you shed blood without crime
You will be damned to endless pain.

11. And if you take up my blood as your burden
It will weigh on you like an unending gloom.

12. And the soul, if obligated to you, you'll find it
A load heavier than any debt.

13. If you were in the sky's heart I'd try
To reach you, a ladder my hands.

14. And I shall hide from you what you entrusted me,
Secrets spread when not concealed.

15. Do you recall when the riding beasts halted
At their stables for pilgrim crowds?

16. When we would stealthily whisper, and above us
Was foglike the darkest storm clouds.