O departure of Layla! You have spared me nothing.
To the anguish of abandonment,
you added more.
The lengths that time went through to come between us
were amazing. Done with what
was between us, time stood still.
O love! Let nothing halt the nightly increase
of my ardor for her. Let the
Day of Resurrection be my relief.
To all love but ‘Āmirī love, my heart is resistant.
"Abū ‘Amr without the ‘amr," you could call it.
My hands are at the verge of dampness, touching her.
She is [like a pool] ringed with plants of leafy green.
And the way her face's beauty lifts my trial and brings down rain!
It is a marvel worthy of the
Prophet's tribe.
Below her robes, the motion of her frame shows through
quite like the motion of a willow
branch in flower.
Beloved are all living things, as long as you may live,
and when a grave contain you,
beloved be the dead!
At the mention of her name, my heart quickens
like a rain-drenched sparrow
shaking off [its wings].
If I were to make the major and minor pilgrimages, and renounce
my visits to Layla, would I then perchance
be recompensed?
No sooner do I see her than I am struck dumb,
abandoned by all cleverness
and all reserve.
If a pebble came under what I undergo, it would split the pebble.
If a giant boulder underwent it,
that boulder would crack.
Wild animals would not put up with it, if it happened to them.
Life-sustaining waters would not
swallow it, nor would a flower.
If the seas went through what I went through, [they would all fall still;]
no more would swelling seas be crossed by waves.
Dīwān Majnūn Laylā 102-3
