1. O heart, they have set out briskly between the living, so set out.
I attached them this way for a while, but they did not attach.

2. Their abode has now become renewed,
and, by lightning bolts, a dwelling fashioned from them.

3. It is as though the tracks of a shy oryx are in it -
a coat of mail its flank-bones leave in order.

4. None resembles those who know their lovers' love,
but you are among them, suffering for whom you desire.

5. They set out by night and hastened every working
camel and working camel in its leading halter.

6. It meets the wastes with a slipper wherein it finds no rest,
as though its dripping onto its soil is laminae.

7. I and Asma and the living who set out at dawn
thereby, against my soul's desire, and they did not pledge.

8. They are like a prisoner whose mate has been led forth,
struggling against the rope, that pulls and slips.

9. They have made the heart fly and leap between its ribs
and tortured the soul until no life remains in it.

10. It is as though there encircled me, the day I was among them,
a green snake interwoven in its hues.

11. When it appears from its lairs, it is as though
a branch in which light and leaves have opened.

12. A tongue slips from it that cries out for help,
as fingers that make signs cry for aid.

13. Unforgettable - no, unforgotten as she bade us farewell
with eyes whose lids were drowned in her tears.

14. She parts her reddened, flaming eyelids
that would burn, were it not for the tears' quenching.

15. When she appears from her curtained litters,
it is as though a rent moon in whose corners night falls dark.

16. And warriors like Indian swords, I said to them,
"Go!" They disobeyed not my word and did not tear it.

17. They went out, and the sun of night submitted to them,
until the stirrings of darkness flared in its robe.

18. For a need for which I have not slept a wink,
while the causes of fate, perhaps, have robbed of sleep.

19. I drink no water unless it is pure
of motes, and for others the turbid and tainted.

20. My resolution is an Indian sword, and my heart does not oppose it
when a man's resolution and neck sinew contend.

21. Dead to hidden thoughts, laughing bitterly,
so long as rancor prevails against my foes.