1. You try denial, while your tears betray
The homelands that have parted you from Layla

2. Each youth in love has plaints and flowing tears
But what pours from the eyes most tells the tale

3. You spoke true of love and the homeland
That sheds on it blood and tears like a flood

4. Old memories in my purpose pain me
And for the heights, yearning and aim I hold

5. Between love and glory my soul lingers
And I wake to sorrows and sleep the same

6. I'm made to suffer with worries and wishes
So my heart is not for love ever steeled

7. Finding joy in pain, pain his friend
The most precious is what hurts yet heals

8. Gathered in him memory, beauty, passion
Can't you see him overflow with feeling?

9. Many friends but loyalty in few
Who's selfless to them shall not prevail

10. My careless friend burdens me beyond my strength
And I lose in all matters, he profits

11. I'm weak in friendship and love, it seems
If friends are stingy, more generous am I

12. If they're distant, I draw near in embrace
If they sin on purpose, I pardon and overlook

13. I'm but the sea, tossing up a corpse
Yet hiding pearls while critics impugn

14. I wander through a rustic Lebanese village
Where flowers scent the breezes at each home

15. And I remember our past love and youth
There in Lebanon where life was easier

16. By God, I'll ne'er forget our love talk
One evening when jasmine released its scent

17. She glanced at me with eyelids like its petals
My eyes on her burn in love's agony

18. She leaned toward the stillness and the dusk
Saying the moon's light would reveal our secret

19. There she revived me with a kiss of her palm
And almost made free with the kiss of her cheek and lip

20. Blessed the smile on that mouth
Showing me a broad open sky

21. And blessed the breath of that hair
With which joy came to the joyless heart

22. And blessed the night that cloaked us
With the tears of communion as stars withdrew

23. A brow upon a cheek, an eye upon a mouth
And hand on hand clasping and caressing

24. That ease is gone, but still I see
Beauty fading and the beloved distant