1. Read my tears, for they are my title,
And I am the book of melancholic passions,

2. Like the book, sorrowful, and like its reader,
Nay, like its line, nay, like its vanishing shape,

3. Nothing of me remains in the eyes,
And God keeps for me that which made me vanish,

4. Had I not been like the line, sickly,
He who observes me would not have returned to me,

5. Making clear my verse like an ambiguous letter,
Perplexed at what the hand of building gave,

6. Alas! The glances will not make me deviate after
My beloved ordered his aversion to erase me,

7. Every day the passion increases upon me,
Revealing unto me the increase of diminution,

8. Since you said I am like the book in order to dissuade me,
I said not that, passion has folded and bent me,

9. He who does not see me from the kindling of his light,
And from the sickness, he can barely see me,

10. If only I had attained the wish through his embrace
We two would not have appeared to the eyes,

11. That which is narrated from the ascription of our hearts’ sickness,
Is only that which is narrated from the eyelids,

12. And the narration of my sickness among those who love him is current,
In their land, on its path, from spring to spring,

13. And indeed I cried over them without tears,
And indeed I complained of them without a tongue,

14. And anxiety is the gentlest thing that betrayed me,
For it did not escape from it, despite concealment, my place,

15. And I concealed my love of them, and concealed my love of them,
Nay, I concealed love from concealment itself,

16. Whoever deposits secrets in his soul,
It is I who concealed them for my soul,

17. Thus the secret is carried but not by a carrier,
Or not, so neither present nor in a place,

18. My heart is like tinder, if you leave it, it does not reveal,
That which is hidden of fires,

19. And the eye is like the eye, if left, its limpidity,
Does not rise to the thirsty,

20. What is the stratagem of man regarding his loved ones,
Who betrayed him? What is the stratagem of man?

21. He hopes for their fruits while he has not seen in them,
A fruit he sees in the branches of separation,

22. He made the limit of his blindness flow,
And the limit does not flow on the intoxicated,

23. And indeed I see the education more fitting for the reed,
Education is a pretense for the branches,

24. God is their neighbor! So in them is that which,
Is in my tears, of colors in them,

25. And I want to unite what is from me in passion,
With them, but my time does not want me,

26. Indeed, he from whom comes the estrangement has killed me,
It is he, with union, whenever he wills, who brings me to life,

27. And I will attain his purpose in my devastation,
Or not, for today we differ,

28. The human of my eye in reality, his home is it,
So I see him carried on my eyelids,

29. And if harm comes from him always,
Then I will reward it with my benefaction,

30. And if he busies himself with separation in love,
And disobeyed him in his rule and my disobedience,

31. Then there, say to the blamers: I am he who,
Did not love him, and he is the one who makes me love,

32. Throw the heart with every arrow you loose,
I have ribs like the firm mountains,

33. Between me and you, O time, are events,
The two gatherings will never meet in them,

34. The critic does not make me slip, for my loved ones,
Their actions, not their words, inspire me,

35. It is clear, despite nearness, like the boats,
Brothers whom two houses did not unite,

36. And by my soul is the moon, from which I have for it,
No compensation, so let the two moons not interfere,

37. Angry, I made those who blamed me angry,
I was not in the two states devoid of anger,

38. And I took from him, not upon him, and my way,
Is that the two sayings and the two faces are accepted,

39. And for him if he knows passion, two faces,
And for him if he promises acceptance, two sayings,

40. If you anger when I am content in passion with you,
Then be angry at the beauty which made me content,

41. I obeyed him when he called me, initiating,
As if he had never called me before,

42. So help your brother by agreeing with his opinion,
In what he sees, for those are the two opinions,

43. It is not helping whom you call on a day of hatred,
With mere stripping and arming,

44. And they provoke me, companionship, if they fly and if,
They fall into arts of the arts,

45. Bringing out thereby the utterances of soothsayers,
Did he not heed my lineage to him? For it,

46. Is a lineage by which I deserved that he shepherd me,
I am by that which my eyelids make flow a river,

47. And by what beauty makes me see, his gardens,
Or will it not be as gardens and their rivers,

48. Forever entwined despite drought?