Number 8

How marvelous is the whole affair of your lips; how precious is the reign of your lips. So many souls and hearts, like your curling hair, fall in love with the season of your lips. It seems my lips have drunk again from the sweet, delicious spring of your lips. For years I have stayed downcast, like your own eyes, drunk with longing for your lips. In all the mines of Badakhshan there is not a single ruby fit to match the worth of your lips. By your life, if only for one night I could take your lips' edge in my embrace, the way your fine down does. Like the down on your face, I would form a ring around that glistening ruby of your lips. In the whole household of my heart only half a life survives, a keepsake of your lips. I fear you are too delicate and it would hurt you, or else I would offer even that up to your lips. Since everyone takes their very life from your lips, I wish your lips would come to use for me again. Life is sweet, and my own life sweeter still, especially when your lips are half its work. Even if the soul showed a hundred thousand graces, in the end it would stand ashamed before your lips. The turquoise sky would bow into a ring before the jewel-adorned ruby of your lips. A painting on a wall would come alive if the passage of your lips fell upon it. My soul has grown sweet and delightful because it was raised at the side of your lips. Give me a kiss, for my wounded soul has risen to my lips, waiting for your lips. Like Khidr, I would find life everlasting if I drank from the flowing spring of your lips.