BEHOLD the fire renewed within my heart,

My sighs have lashed it with their breath until the flames outstart;

Nor may this feeble cage, my body, stay

The fluttering of this bird, my soul, that longs to fly away.

The rocks would melt, and into tears would flow,

Could they but hear the never-ending murmur of my woe;

For in the dark foreboding of my heart

There sounds the warning bell that calls the caravan to start:

O Love, I have bewailed for all these years

Thy tyranny, but none has heard my voice except my tears.

Behold how poor I am, but yet so proud,

I would not sit at Hatim’s table with the eager crowd:

See, I have watched throughout the lonely night

Of separation, when there never came my heart’s delight,

And in my desolation tears of blood

Gushed from my stricken, widowed heart in never-ending flood:

Yet to me, purged by grief, does hope arise,

My withered chaplets change to fragrant flowers of Paradise.

Love holds me in these cruel fetters bound,

My faithfulness to Thee: beside Thy feet, a beaten hound,

I crouch and fawn for crumbs of love from Thee.

O Makhfi, if thy sighs could reach the bosom of the sea,

Even within the cold and lightless deep

Caught from thy heart a quenchless flame should leap.