I love you with the imagination of a creative artist

who gives body to what he feels

and loves what he gives body to —

for no reason, except that it echoes in the depths of his soul!

I love you with the eyes of the appreciative onlooker

who feels but cannot express it well,

yet who can still say "I love" —

what fault is it of his, when the harmonious intervals

clamor with happiness in the depths of his soul!

And I am the most ignorant of the ignorant:

what have I to do with the rules of the arts,

so long as the hum of the creative brush

has fashioned out of this shade and light a feeling

whose echoes resound in the bottom of my soul!

Just as you are, I love you when you pass by —

no matter what beauty you represent,

no matter what woman you may be,

so long as you answer, like the hum of a brush, in the bottom of my soul.

What secret lies upon the lips of the sunset,

that its colors are of my wounds and of my pallor?

Would that it had died of burning thirst in the noonday blaze

and vanished in the fury of the flame —

what has it now, that it rests there, dewy-fresh,

in my imaginings and in my mournful heart,

grown intimate with the shade within my eyelids, dozing,

lovesick with my wine and my perfumes!

Gather up, O my hand, the remnants of its radiance —

out of mercy — from the beloved's paths,

and if a longing grows insistent within the ribs,

dig out the heart and bury it, and repent...

Time will grow old, age upon age,

while to the eye it stays eternally dyed.