يا فؤادي رحم الله الهوى

O my heart, may God have mercy on passion, which was a palace of imagination and then collapsed.

Pour me a drink and drink upon its ruins, and tell my story as my tears have long told it.

How did that love become a mere tale, a distant narrative among stories of burning yearning?

Like a carpet of dream companions who vanished forever just as it folded away.

O winds whose fury never rests, the oil has run dry and my lamp has gone out.

While I sustain myself on a faded illusion, fulfilling a lifetime of loyalty to the unfaithful.

How often I turned upon its dagger, yet neither passion faltered nor did the eyelid grant mercy.

And this heart, in its forgiveness, pardons every time the blade plunges deep within.

O affection that lived within my blood, a destiny like death whose taste was absolute.

We did not spend a single hour at its wedding, yet we spent a lifetime at its funeral.

What an effort to extract a single tear from her eye, or extort a smile from her mouth.

Would that I knew where to escape from her, for where can a fugitive go to escape his own blood?

I never forget you when you tempted me with a mouth whose sweet address was tender.

And a hand reaching toward me like one stretched through the waves to save a drowning man.

O sanctuary of my footsteps, behold how these feet have complained of the road's thorns.

And a brilliance for which the night-traveler thirsts, where in your eyes is that very brilliance?

I never forget you when you tempted me with lofty peaks, making me addicted to ambition.

You are a soul in my sky, and I rise toward you as if I were pure spirit.

What summits those were where we met and whispered our deepest secrets.

Peering into the unseen from their towers, seeing humanity below as mere shadows on the slopes.

You remain a beauty in its perpetual dawn, while I carry the sorrows of a child.

And the lingering shadow of a departed caravan, and the threads of light from a fallen star.

I survey the world with weary eyes, seeing only phantoms of boredom all around me.

Dancing upon the wreckage of passion, wailing above the graves of hope.

Life has vanished in vain, so go your way; your promise was never more than a phantom.

A page that time has swept away, upon which love inscribed its marks and then erased them.

Look at my laughter and joyful dance, while I carry a heart that has been slaughtered.

People see me as a soaring spirit, while the millstones of inner anguish grind me down.

You were the statue of my imagination, and it fell; it was destiny's will, not my hands.

Alas, it knew not what it shattered; it shattered my crown and leveled my temple.

O life of the solitary, despairing soul, O wasteland utterly devoid of any companion.

O scorching wildernesses with no confidant to be found, O silence of eternity.

Where is the enchanting beloved from my eyes, embodying nobility, majesty, and modesty?

Walking with the confident step of a king, cruelly beautiful and intoxicatingly proud.

Fragrant with magic like the breath of meadows, with dreamy eyes like the hush of evening.

Radiant in appearance, and in speech a language of light and celestial expression.

Where is that gathering place with you, a perfection of absolute splendor and brilliance?

While I am love, heart, blood, and a wandering moth that drew near to you.

Longing served as a messenger between us, and a cupbearer who offered us the cup.

He poured for us, and we shuddered for a moment at the bitter dust of our shared blood.

We came to know the tyranny of the flesh that rules the living and reigns supreme in the blood.

And we heard a thundering cry like a torturer's whip accompanied by its torment.

It commanded us and we disobeyed its order, refusing to let humiliation touch our foreheads.

The tyrant ruled, so we joined the rebels and were driven beyond the walls of life.

O exiles lost in the rugged wilds, bleeding upon their thorns and jagged stones.

Whenever the nights grow harsh, we recognize the pristine grandeur of the exile.

Driven from that great dream toward dark fortunes and blind, oppressive nights.

Drawing light from their own souls whenever the world miserly withholds its illumination.

You have turned my affairs into a wonder, multiplying the meadow birds around me.

Whenever I told my heart for a moment to rise and sing for another, my heart refused.

You drew veils that denied my eyes any purpose or desire other than your own face.

You are the one who hung these veils; do not claim that I was the one who drew them.

How often despair shouted at me to tear them down, while mocking fate replied: leave them be.

What a blind strategy that was; had I possessed any sight at all, I would not have obeyed.

Woe unto me for having realized it, and woe unto me for having followed it.

It bowed my head, but even if all powers sought to buy my self-respect, I would not sell it.

O beloved, when I once visited your thicket, the bird of longing sang my pain.

Yours is the slow delay of the pampered, and the cruel tyranny of the absolute ruler.

My longing for you scorches my bones, while every second burns like a live coal in my blood.

And I wait in my place, my hearing keenly sharpened for the sound of approaching footsteps.

Footsteps stepping forward, while my heart resembles a wave pressing toward its shore.

O you who are unjust, by God, how long must I shed tears upon the ground you trod?

You are mercy itself, so is there no mercy for a homeless soul or a thirsty spirit?

O healing of the soul, my spirit complains of the injustice inflicted by its creator upon it.

Give me my freedom and release my hands, for I have given everything and kept nothing back.

Why should I keep shackles that draw blood from my wrists when you spare me nothing?

Why cling to covenants you did not guard, enduring the prison of captivity while the world is mine?

Behold, my tears have dried up, so forgive them; they were never lavished on anyone before you.

And if the bird has flown from your nest, the streams have dried and the frost has attacked.

This world is made of frozen hearts; the flame has died and the embers have hidden away.

And whatever spark the heart once caught became mere ash; do not ask how it turned out.

Do not ask, but remember the torment of one who tries to rekindle it yet draws no fire.

May God show no mercy to a harsh evening that revealed all my dreams to be in vain.

And showed me the heart of the one I worship mocking my tears just as the enemies mock.

Would that I knew what events transpired to cast your soul into a locked prison.

Your soul rusted in its deep darkness, just as all souls become covered in rust.

I saw the universe as a narrow tomb over which despair and silence hovered.

And my eyes saw the falsehoods of romance, as frail as a spider's threads.

You used to pity me and know my pain, if a silent statue could ever pity a tear.

At your feet a world comes to an end, and at your door wealth dies away.

You used to call me a child whenever my love flared up and my eyes grew moist.

And you were right, for passion lived within me as a child, growing up without wisdom.

It saw the wound and where it was aimed, so it rushed madly toward its own destruction.

It targeted the child and wounded his heart, while striking down the man's pride.

I told the soul, having crossed the threshold: make haste, for caution is useless when slow.

Leave the temple whose fire has been lit, consuming the bowing worshipers within it.

My loyalty wishes for a return, while wounded passion refuses that we should go back.

I feel toward the blazing flame the longing of the log once it has turned to fuel.

I shall never forget an hour in my life.

Beneath a wind that applauded the dancing rain.

It mourned to the memory and complained to the moon.

And whenever it rejoiced, it raged wildly through the trees.

Behold what the wind whispered into the poet's ear, tempting the heart like a cynical, wicked advisor.

O poet who slumbers, you remember the covenant and then awake.

And whenever a wound heals, memory stirs it open anew.

So learn how to forget, and learn how to erase.

Or is all love in your opinion merely forgiveness and pardon?

Look at the number of hearts and women like the sands; choose whatever you wish, life has passed in vain.

Lost upon the earth is he who seeks children of the sky; what spirituality can be squeezed from mud and water?

O wind, indeed, yet she remains my love, my solace, and my despair.

She was created in the unseen for my heart, shining upon me before my sun ever rose.

Upon her promise I closed my eyes, and upon her memory I laid my head to rest.

The wind raged and the demons of darkness called out: O seal, how can the ending seem sweet to you in the beginning?

O wounded one who surrendered his wound to the beloved who reopened it, he does not weep, it is the herald who announces this.

O mighty one, are you brought low for the sake of a woman? What a cry that awoke nothing

within him save bitter memory; you stayed awake beside it until it stirred

like the remains of a broken dagger; the river gleamed and called out to him,

so he descended toward the river, his provisions exhausted and no journey remaining

without provisions other than this journey; O my beloved, everything is by decree.

We were not created wretched by our own hands; perhaps our destinies will reunite us

one day after meetings have grown rare, when a friend fails to recognize his companion.

And we meet with the meeting of strangers, and each goes his own way.

Do not say anything, but tell me fate willed it; O singer of eternity, you wasted your life

in melodies sung to mortals; there is none among the living who hears us.

Why do we not sing to the stone, to the embers that lack consciousness,

and to the rotting remains in the graves? Sing to them and you will see them stir,

pitying the singer and weeping for the strings; O cry that whenever you sent it forth,

it returned defeated and struck against fate, and a shout of joyful aspiration

came back to me as wailing and regret; O statue of beauty and splendor

that appeared to me while life was grief and oppression, the melody slumped over it kneeling,

not knowing it is a deaf beauty; the night grew still and had no heart; O sleepless watcher who knows your confusion,

O poet, take your lyre, sing your sorrows and pour out your tear.

How often a melody made the star dance, conquered the clouds, and struck down the star.

Sing it until we see the veil of darkness torn as dawn breaks upon it.

And if some blossoms are terrified and you see fear gripping their hearts,

then be gentle, tarry, and play for them a tender melody to wipe away their fear.

Perhaps they slept upon a cradle of sorrow, weeping and calling out to their Lord for help.

O poet, how many a flower has been punished without ever knowing its crime.