Quatrains

Every hour the blood boils inside me, and those outside have no idea of it. Only someone who has seen Leyli's face can know the pain that Majnun endures.

Your lovers are captives at your door, so come. They will not hold your bad temper against you, so come. Every cruelty and wrong you've done, you're forgiven. Come before the day when your excuse won't be accepted.

Your eyes are drowsy with sleep and drunk with wine; the discerning ones thirst for you, but your embrace is only a mirage. Someone as lovely as you, anywhere in this whole world, could only ever be seen in a mirror or in water.

Since the heart can't be freed from longing for the beloved, the only cure is patience and bowing your head. Either you must give up the bright red rose, or you must make peace with the pain of its thorns.

The heart is slipping away, and there's no sewing the eyes shut to stop it; when there's no true piety inside you, you can't peddle a fake show of it. It wasn't the candle that burned the helpless moth; the one who truly burned was the very love that kept the candle lit.

One day you told me: 'Some night I'll make your heart glad, and set you free from the chains of your sorrows.' You saw how many nights have passed since that day, and not once did your own promise come back to your mind?

A hundred times I told the servants at your gate not to leave a mirror in front of you again. I'm afraid you'll see your own moon-like face, and then no one else will ever catch your eye.

The one who broke our pledge of love was leaving, and I clung to the hem of her robe, holding on. She said, 'From now on, you'll only see me in your dreams.' As if, once she was gone, I could ever sleep at all.

Nights pass when I can't close my eyes; everyone else is drunk on sleep, and I on the thought of you. May you spill my blood with your own hand, so that as I give up my life, I finally hold what I longed for.

A clear head grows drunk on longing for you; how lucky the heart that loses itself to your face. Without you, everything in the realm of existence is nothing; and though there be nothing, since you exist, everything exists.

If the trouble of the people in this street comes from us, or if the blame for that sour face is ours, tomorrow that face will change and turn as fresh as milk, and we too will be cast out, the way a hair is pulled from milk.

What a wonder! This upright figure is doomsday itself; even the cypress lacks the grace that you possess. Better that you visit graves no more, so the dead won't cry out, 'Judgment Day has come!'

The cypress took the measure of its height from your stature; the sea took its glowing pearls from your mouth. Wherever I see a violet, I say: 'The wind has carried a strand of your hair out to the open field.'

Tonight, with my love here to light up my soul, my fortune wins out, no matter what my enemies wish. Let the candle die and the moon go down, I don't care: any night you're beside me is bright as day.

The night you spend beside me is bright as day, and the day that passes with you is a festival. Yesterday is gone; don't sit waiting for tomorrow. Seize this moment, for the fruit of life is today.

They say spring's air is sweet, the scent of flowers and the birdsong in the garden are sweet. The low note of the strings and the mournful cry are sweet; you who don't understand, all of this is sweet only with your love beside you.

I will rise and go, for waiting is unbearable; I will lay my life at her feet, for she is my heart's peace. And before enemy and friend alike I will confess: «the one who killed me has my full forgiveness.»

That beauty you once called an angel of mercy, look again this time and you'll see a devil. A face that was as welcome as fire in winter is today as unwanted as a fur coat in summer.

That fickle one, the hard-hearted love of mine, is a warm light for others but a fire that burns everything I own. You who are at peace with everyone yet at odds only with me: the fault is not yours; the blame lies with my luck.

He wounded the hearts of enemy and friend so often that, as punishment, it's as if his very skin was transformed. Once, the grief he caused weighed on every heart; now all the sorrows of the world weigh on his.

You have entered my heart like blood through vein and skin; whatever comes to me from your hand is good. Bird of the dawn, you have risen with the morning, but all night long we never slept, aching for the one we love.

Since even my wretched state looks fine to the one I love, let the enemy be cruel, let him strip the skin from my body. Since this merciless enemy is a messenger sent by her, I would be a breaker of vows if I did not hold this enemy dear.

The warrior races and struggles toward martyrdom, but the one whom longing for you has killed stands higher than he. On the day of resurrection, how could these two be alike? One was slain by the enemy, the other slain by the beloved.

If a heart is to be given to anyone, my love, let it be given to you, for you have a sweet temper, a sweet scent, and a lovely face. I can bear to live without anyone at all, except you, for you are my whole existence.

If I am wounded by that hand as soft as a healing balm, or if my kernel is cracked from its shell like an almond, my pride will not let me complain to anyone, so that no one guesses that the one I mean is you.