1. I fell in love, and who is there that does not fall in love?
Why not, when the ring-doves are smitten with passion?

2. And if I am hooked on my beloved, surely he
In my heart has hooked all of nature about him.

3. I die of love when the tryst of union is denied me,
And live exultant when that union is allowed.

4. The youth is kept alive by the very thing that kills himSo with water he lives, and with water he drowns.
And I beg you, do not deny the throbbing of his heart,

5. For the heart that strives and throbs is a throbbing heart.
The meaning is not that the lover is really fettered,

6. But that the lover of the meaning is fettered fast.
He gave guidance with his cheeks and went astray with his hair,

7. So that he almost made good the saying of al-Manawi.
The full moon is mine, O Dayyachi, and yours but waning,

8. While you over the days will fade and disappear.
The hair curled over his temple, so my heart hovered there, curling,

9. And had it not been for his cheek, its ember would have burned his temple,
And dew and hoverer on the fire spent the night;

10. And there was a scratch along the line of his cheek as if
Writing attached to a line of script.

11. For your sake, carry to his temple a kiss from me,
Since his cheek is water wherein his temple is a boat.

12. And if the breeze stirs the water rumple that boat there
That in that water it may sink.

13. Or else on the slender waist––so he said to me:
"To you; for at the waist it is more slender still."