1. You promised me less than I hoped for in this life
So you'll never find another like me, never join me later

2. If someday you say "I love you, O youth!"
I'm content with the sweetest words - such is my aim

3. That is the ideal phrase for one like me, for I am
A connoisseur of words like aged wine

4. I yearn for breaths that when they blow
Remind me of the fragrance of violets and roses

5. My beautiful tormentor, your Lord is beneficent
So do not deny the Lord of Beauty by being cold

6. You've strung lovers' hearts into a necklace
Yet this heart is the clasp holding it together

7. So if someday you walk like the pride of Zeinab
Tell them "This youth leads the troops"

8. For your sake I tend the star, if only you were a star
Rising alone for me from the blue dome

9. No astronomer tracks the stars
While I have an observatory built on India's mountains

10. How the lamps' light tires me in the darkness
Yet my eyes delight in the first light and wakefulness

11. Will you lift the veil one day and shine
Onto my heart like the crescent on the horizon

12. Your gown is a blooming green meadow
Your lips are the pleasure of wine and honey

13. Bestow on me a kind glance from your radiance
On velvet, whose softness is in the cheek

14. And none blame who enjoy for an hour
Beauty, but the blameworthy are the ascetic