HER voice was sweeter than the sound of waters,
Of waters afar from cataracts,
Sweeter was the voice of my beloved.
The storm descends and the tent flutters,
The tent so dark by day, so musical by star-light,
The tent where my bosom hath ever found repose.
Bed of bright yellow, had I left thee at Damascus
Thou needest not have adopted cares and disquiet,
Surrounded with dreams of gain and vows of suspended silk.
Dyed in the gall of serpents, in the wine of unbelievers,
Thou writhest with pain or creakest with restlessness,
More tiresome than bird, more incessant than jackal.
Fed on the milky neck of my beloved,
And dizzy with the fragrance of her flowering lips,
I beheld and I resembled the light impassive sky.
Was it thou, unfortunate? was thine this happiness?
O hug not the remembrance, O beat it from thy bosom,
It may be thy enemy’s, it is no longer thine.
God is great! repine not, O child and mourner of dust! —
The Prophet, who could summon the future to his presence,
Could the Prophet himself make the past return?