أنت الحبيب وإن سلبت رقادي — العفيف التلمساني

You are the beloved, though you have robbed me of sleep,

and, in our affair, heeded the envious who assailed me.

May this heart of mine—lost in passion for you—be no more,

if it turns from you toward guidance and sound reason.

Your cheeks have mastered my two dark pupils: their moisture

comes from my eye, while their flame burns in my heart.

Ah, pity an eye that, in its own tears,

lies drowned, while its pupil thirsts for your face.

I swear by the bygone life that passed for us

with vintage wine, a young gazelle, or a singer;

and by the sweetness of al-ʿAqīq’s nights, and by what

those gazelles wrought there against the lions;

may I never turn from Wadi al-Uthayl for any solace

that makes me forget my bonds with that valley’s dear folk.

One lives there; through him, consolation died—do you not see

the eyelids clothed in mourning for it?

And by a veiled one—my passion for him is not veiled

from my reproachers, nor does any show of patience appear.

Whenever he sways, I am the one pierced by a form—

slender, and mocking the swaying lances.

And whenever he gazes, I am the one slain by an eye—

wide, and more piercing than the edges of sharpened steel.