The soul cannot bear too long
The absence of the one it desires.
Love survives where lovers stay true.
Without constancy love expires.

Be faithful to those who stay true,
The faithless make haste to eschew.
Your virtues reveal not to view
Where no one virtue admires.

O my friend, again and again
I repeat: where there is no shame,
No honour, there's nothing to gain,
There's nothing your soul to inspire.

God shield the abandoned and lone,
The souls that in solitude groan.
Sad and lone as a rolling stone
Is he who no friendship acquires.

Acknowledge the truth, o my heart,
Or conscience will make you smart.
How can men from the truth depart
When nothing such baseness requires?

To you, o my bosom friend,
This admonition I send.
But answer me-in the final end,
Can there be a rose without briars?

The heart loves as long as it lives,
Love no rest to the spirit gives.
How can I live-Allah forgive-
If gone is the one whom my heart desires?

Translated by Dorian Rottenberg