1. Lessen my torment, for yearning shatters the heart of the lover
In love, sorrow is prolonged or life is shortened

2. Do you not see me, my face pale and emaciated
Like one who spent the night in shackles, made ill by captivity

3. Yes, I have a knot of despair and passion
Such is what this era begets

4. I see the era as sand, above it a bare expanse
No trees for shade, neither green nor fresh

5. How many beauties have opened their lips and withered my eyelids
To seduce me, but my mouth did not waver for them

6. And when she saw that aloofness, she sighed
And said, while my heart is amidst the seas of passion, a rock

7. Are you not human? Beauty has no power over you
Nor do eyes whose sorcery is naught

8. You have but seventeen excuses
I said to her, my soul has aged, not my hair

9. Within my ribs is a lofty ambition
That surges and boils like a boiling pot

10. You know not what longing and
Passions are in me, told by storms and seas

11. I see what you cannot see or perceive
Below me, neither veil nor screen

12. She said: Yes, this is true, but
I see breadth in love, if the chest be narrow

13. How many joys of intimacy and blessing
On a smile that comes when fate prevails

14. Do you not see my hair like a studded full moon
As the stars studded the mantle of dusk with flowers

15. My red lips are but as a rose
Upon which pearls scatter from my teeth

16. My eyes brim with love, in them water and ardour
From my tears, freshness, from my soul, embers

17. I said, as all my senses surged:
Come to my chest, for patience has betrayed me

18. If this is love, then living is sweet
Oh, would that this night had no dawn