I remembered you as a balm that heals my wounds,

as soft feathers clothing my wing,

and in memory I came back to you a newborn,

as though no eraser had wiped out the book of yesterday.

I look out from the crib upon a bliss

of dewy shade, decked out in daisies,

and I rise up singing whenever a phantom

of your face appears, at morning and at evening,

like a fledgling bird that cries out whenever a wing

comes into view, or wakes to birdsong.

I remembered you when I woke upon a mirage —

before I lost you I had never been awake.

Your tenderness — how, O mother, can one hope for it,

a meeting of those forced into exile?

In what horizon, I wonder, do you stand from me,

on what shore my winds can never reach?

I see you in dreams at times, and then I wake

to a hope my morning scatters;

so I weep for you, and feel some spirit

consoling me and mocking my lament.

And whenever I complain of an aching head, I all but

feel your two palms feeling my palm,

and your lips drawing near my brow,

that in them I might reach my ease.

Today I see you in my eyes a phantom

fluttering, as yesterday, a world of grace.

God keep you — what a tender mother,

who poured light into my soul and my wine!

But for you I would never have uttered a letter,

nor won any portion of success;

and but for your dear phantom, the world,

for all the breadth of its plains, would have closed in on me.

Ishraq... O sweet basil of the valley, perfume of the hill,

O breeze of the pure dawn upon the dew-fresh flowers,

O enchantment — the intoxication of beauty upon bare arms;

the sun swims in the carnelian of the hair, just short of the abyss,

and night hides its secrets in the kohl of the eyes.

Ishraq... O melody of beauty, O embrace of its longings,

song of the shaded garden and murmurings of the water-channel,

Ishraq, O enchantment of the valley and perfume of the hill.

•

And I, the love-mad one — how long I kept vigil, how often I raised my prayers

to the allure of those eyes, until Ishraq became one of my idols.

They said I was an unbeliever, that I had set up partners in my faith —

I recited nothing in my prayer-niche but the verse of love-song.

They said that I had bowed down before that temptress

and spilled before her beauty my love and the water of my youth,

and squandered of the pride of young manhood what calls upon my dignity.

So I grew wrathful for the slaughtered pride and at chewing over my humiliation,

and I stormed against the abasing love and cut its strings —

and behold, Ishraq appeared, and my delusions were dispelled.

With her eyelid she beckons; my soul grew drunk and my heart was lost;

and I spoke — and behold, the words melted upon my tongue;

and I swooned from the rapture of a lip that sought my lips.

By God — never in all of time has passion lived the like of that second.

•

A melody that wanders over the hills and lives in my dreamings;

if it vanishes from the world of being, its echo is in my dreams.

Ishraq... O song of the valley and dream of the hill.