Number 20

Did you see, my heart, what has come to me again? What can I do, who can I tell, what thought can I even hold? I wish love's cruelty had never pitched its tent on me, for now I'm left helpless with my aching heart. My love, you never laid a hand on the snake of your own curls; so how much more must the scorpion of your absence sting me? Like a drum, I take blow after blow from your cruelty; like a harp, I bow my head low under the grief of losing you. Why disgrace me? Just put out the fire of love in me. I'm less than dust already, so don't scatter me to the wind. Take pride in your beauty as you like, but I won't beg to your face, so you'll know my heart is rich even when I'm penniless. Again and again the urge rises in me to speak words of unbelief, since I'm caught heart and soul by those infidel locks of yours. Reason itself lost its mind over crazy Saadi; that's why, wrecked and scattered, I still cling to my state.