Every day I build domes,

I raise them above the crests of the clouds,

And wipe them with dew and mist,

And scatter within them wondrous pearls.

Their ornaments are of the wing of sunset,

And their breaths,

Gathered from Suha, the faintest star,

Are baskets of perfume.

And God has shadows there

To which imagination goes on pilgrimage,

To sip the essence of beauty

And sound the depths of the impossible.

And the nightingale has a lover's call —

A gentle beloved who, though near, went far,

Who appeared a stranger and turned away a stranger,

And neither greeted nor bade farewell,

Nor said: tomorrow I am resolved to come.

Domes, domes,

Looking down in pride upon the Lote Tree of the Utmost Boundary;

Toward them desires

Die of thirst, or grow weary of the mirage,

And in their shade sleeps all that is longed for.

And every day I see the tempest

Ranging, roaring, thundering;

It sows ruin,

It pulls down the domes and blots out the palaces

And turns them into a handful of graves

Where a raven glorifies annihilation,

And owls screech and wolves howl.

O soil made of the wreckage of hopes

And of memories of fragrance and light,

I have asked you to bring forth the lily,

For my heart and my beloved's heart are here,

Both laid low among the remains of the domes —

My two companions in passion, my two companions in torment.

The heart's loftiest desire, O precious one,

is that we meet upon the high summit.

For you, on the horizon of longing, are a star

that fluttered through my dreams and my hopes.

Not the brilliant planet in its glory,

guiding the lost Magi through its dark night,

is more radiant or sweeter than you, O star

moving in proud splendor through its lofty skies.

I love you, for all your vanity, certain

that but for me you would surpass no fair beauty.

Let it suffice you of your world to be turned

into an anthem for poetry, O Janiya.

What is the worth of lifetimes, once forgotten?

The artist may win immortality in a second.

My life and the life of the sun are a legend,

and you are its abiding image.