1. O breeze of the morning, when did you pass through Nejd,
For you have stirred in me passions and torment.

2. May God prolong your life! Did you pass a waking lover
By the sands, and blow gently, perfumed and cool?

3. Or did you pass by Layla at night and kiss
Her bracelet and embrace her slender form?

4. Or did you inhale a breath from her necklace
Where it draped gracefully over her cool skin?

5. Truly, my pact with love and passion draws out
A coolness that pours musk and tenderness.

6. No coquette can see the full moon as a match
For her splendor, or the gazelle her equal in grace.

7. She revealed from the gloom of tents a bough
And donned a necklace of stars like beads.

8. O may God protect the time of bliss I lived,
When for an age I lived in ease and plenty,

9. Where the meadows of youth are fresh and verdant
And the branches of youth flutter and bend.

10. That time was my time, now lost,
And my love was that love, now ransomed.