غلا الحب فابذل فيه نفسك طائعا — أبو زيد الفازازي

Love commands a dear price—so offer your very self to it willingly.

Perhaps, if you set your course toward your beloved, you may arrive.

The burning ache of sorrow interprets what I conceal;

Indeed, the tongue of one’s condition is more piercing, more eloquent.

I erred when I laid my heart bare to passion—for then

It came to be stung from every side.

Drowned beneath eyelids, or ablaze within the breast—

Here I am, forever passing my days choking on sobs.

I dozed, hoping I might see the one I love;

But how can slumber come to a wakeful man who writhes?

I shut my eyes to everyone but you, because

I saw that my heart could never free itself of you.

You have mastered my heart, my hearing, and my sight;

So your rule over all I hide and all I show is welcome.

The lovers’ spoils are sleeplessness and tears;

Thus love’s crescent, within the heart, goads it on.

The dark recesses of my heart are love’s place of rising;

And surely bitter ṣāb is chewed against one’s will.

Love’s exile holds his letter in both palms,

But rare indeed is the faithful messenger who will deliver it.