English
The Lover Sends a Message to the Beloved
After a lifetime in which my heart drank blood,
reason left and the heart alone kept working.
When grief closed off the heart's very breath,
with a hundred spells and a hundred tricks and schemes,
I tamed a swift-winged eagle
and sent a message to that idol of beauty:
You who are both my life and my heart's beloved,
longing for you rules the private chamber of my heart.
Your beauty is a fountain of light for the soul's eye;
may no evil eye ever reach your face.
I am that heartsick one who, out of restlessness,
cries and wails at your threshold.
I hold no wish that goes against your will;
I have no place to be but your street.
My heart forever craves you;
within me burns love and yearning for you.
The magic of your eyes has led me astray;
the dimple of your chin has cast me into a pit.
I have become a captive of your dark, musky hair;
have mercy, for I have become your helpless one.
How long must my heart seethe and my body writhe?
How long must my eyes stay full of blood from longing?
How long must I wander, dazed and disgraced,
spinning aimlessly like the turning sky?
Have pity on this wounded, wandering man;
have pity on this grieving, ruined man.
See my disarray, tangled like your own hair;
see how lost and bewildered I am.
I have no comfort but your kindness;
from your eyes I get nothing but heartsickness.
If, for a moment, out of old friendship,
the candle of your beauty would give me its light,
I would become a moth and die at your feet,
I would die before your graceful height.
A single speck of your sun is enough for me,
and a single leaf from that garden of paradise is enough.
I do not ask to sit beside you for even a moment;
I would be content just to see you from afar.
When you lay out all my circumstances,
and recount my story point by point,
recite this heartfelt verse from Homam's poems
before that heart-brightening moon.
Since these lines serve the purpose here,
borrowing from the masters is no shame.
Say: he speaks, that sleepless, restless one,
from the moment he suddenly, from the rooftop,