Two Lines of March

 1. The sound of my beloved's anklets—to the lover's eye, what celestial music,
 In its melodic swoon, the seeker's lifelong quest shatters, scattered like dust!
  
 2. Though I may not see her, I can still dream—and there lies joy!
 Better a candle's glow in a beggar's hut than the moon's hidden well!
  
 3. This heart became a traveler seeking love—let it remain a wanderer!
 Life burned in love's fire; let it burn, let it char to ash and dust!
  
 4. Why do people think we live just because the mind dwells in flesh?
 I believe we live only when love breathes within us!
  
 5. My beloved's blow leaves me dead, or her smile makes me forget all wounds!
 Why do I laugh? Can tenderness be this soft?
  
 6. What language does my foreign beloved speak? I cannot understand!
 Why was that tongue not mine—the one my love speaks?
  
 7. They say as we age, as bodies break, love simply won't come!
 I say: keep love's cool fire burning, and such thoughts are forbidden!
  
 8. In this very life, before death, I found heaven
 when I left this home for that other dwelling!
  
 9. Your eyes say you haven't slept; tell me true—in whose arms did you spend the night?
 On whose lips rested your wine-drunk mouth, whose love binds you tighter?
  
 10. If my eyes' magic no longer draws you as before,
 let all the dust at your door remain bound to my gaze!
  
 11. The night my beloved slept without stirring from her dreams,
 she said at dawn that I was the one who stayed away!
  
 12. The day I became you and you became me, I became body, you became soul,
 so none could say: two bodies, two spirits—I am I, you are another!