Was That Laylas Flame
Was that Layla's flame that shone through the veils of night on Dhū-Salam,
or lightning's flash round ˁAlam and Zawrā' throughout the vales?
Have you but a sigh of dawn for me, O winds about Naˁmān?
Have you but a sip to offer me, O waters of Wajra's ways?
O driver of laden camels rolling up the wayless sands
like a scroll of mighty writ beside Ịdam's Sagebrush today
Turn aside at the guarded safeground -God be your shepherd!- and seek the path
To yonder Lotus thicket, to the myrtle and laurel bay.
Then halt at Mount Salˁ and ask at the curling vale of Raqmatayn:
Have the tamarisks grown and touched at last in the livening weep of the rain?
If you've crossed the waters of ˁAqīq in the mornlight, I implore you
By God, be unabashed and offer them my heartfelt Hail!
Tell everybody this: I have left behind a heartfelled man
Alive as a deadman, adding plague to plague through your domains.
From my heart like a burning bush there spreads a fire of more than flame.
From my eyes the pouring tears are like a ceaseless season of rains.
For such is the lovers' law: not one limb of the mortal body
When bound in love with a gazelle can ever be freed of pain.
You ignoramus! You who defame and shame me for my love!
Desist and learn. You would not blame me, had your love been the same.
My oath by the sacred union, by the age-old love and by
That covenant's communion and all the things of bygone ages:
No consolation, no replacement turned me away from loving
For it is not who I am to move with the whims of solace and change.
Return the slumber to my eyes, and then perhaps I will see you
Visit my bed in the recklessness of dream as a revenant shade.
Alas for our days at Khayf! Had they but lasted each tenfold!
Alas for me, alas, how the last day couldn't last or stay.
If only my grief could cure me, oh if only the "oh" of my woe
And my remorse could ever recover aught that is passed away,
Gazelles of the winding dell! Be kind and turn away from me
For I, to look on no one but my love, have bound my gaze
In deference to a Judge who has decreed a wondrous fatwa
That my blood be shed in every month, the sacred and profane.
Deaf, he did not hear my plea. Dumb, he could not reply.
He is stricken blind to the plight of one whom love has struck insane.