Send me wandering, O my roads—perhaps

I may spread my soul in the wide, wide open;

perhaps I may wash these ribs and wipe away

a darkness grown old in my dismal heart.

What is my staying, when every morning that dawns

is my yesterday, and the monotonous echo of my yesterday?

The void, the void drinks up my life

drop by drop, and my flame gutters out.

The ferment of the veins has burned away, and left

love's thirst crying out in my pallor.

Is love, then, only a heartache in hearts

that pursue beauty through fair looks and fragrance,

till its secret comes upon them and they find nothing

but death-rattles in the wake of the dread embrace?

*

Despair mocked my faithfulness, and cast

a bitter suspicion in the face of my beloved.

Wantonly I burned the nights away—cups

and lips—and grew drunk on sins,

as though I were a jinn, a night-prowler of evil,

scattering his terror through the night of calamities.

Virgin hearts were bolted shut against me

and turned away from the suspect phantom.