1. Do you not lament his state, O Khamad?
For estrangement today may turn to union tomorrow.

2. I see you have severed the rope from me,
Though I long clung to that rope, grasping it tightly.

3. You replaced my contentment with displeasure
And my familiar intimacy with isolation.

4. You were not wont to be harsh with the youth—
Yet what one is unused to is hard to bear.

5. I folded the fascination of my heart like Moses,
And your aloofness seduced the eyes of the wakeful.

6. You are but a temptation prevailing over sorrow—
Working upon glances as silk upon the smoothed.

7. The Merciful crowned you with a crown of radiance
And the joyous light with which the dawn is guided.

8. That slender form sways like a branch of youth
Bending as gently as the breeze upon the pliant.

9. And the heart surges and surges at his turning—
Why then did he not see grace in tenderness?

10. God willed that his beauty’s glory
Should humble the free with the yoke of slavery.

11. His be the tallness if he draws near or no blame if aloof—
In any case, he remains unassailed.

12. I say to him, though the camel litter parts us,
Startled by a singing voice, tender and warbling:

13. My journey has distanced me from you, and I have no stratagem
When the provisions are cut off from the provisioner.

14. And though beyond you I have nothing left but
The discourse of hopes, tryst after tryst,

15. I shall show willing patience and endurance—perhaps
The nights' changes will bring the most felicitous.

16. And I send my breath, whenever the zephyr blows,
To convey my greeting and take its meal from you.