لك الله إني ما بعدت مسهد — أبو الحسن الجرجاني

God be with you—I, while far away, lie sleepless,

bereft of solace and worn down.

Whenever I call upon my patience, I am answered

by swift tears of mine, some straying, some coursing straight.

My sighs raise them as blood from my liver,

and my eyelids send them down, rose-red.

I would ransom you! My longing is unlike any longing I have known,

nor is this passion of a kind I ever knew before.

It is as though a spear quivers in my liver whenever

lightning flashes, or some haunt of yours appears.

I entrust my messages to the breaths of the north wind,

and sighs of mine move restlessly among them.

If a scorching simoom should blow through a quarter,

it is the remnant of my breaths, blazing there.

Had I known what love would make me endure,

no hand would have ruled for parting against our union.

Let no rational man deny eternity in the Fire:

here I am, immortal in passion’s fire.