The simoom spreads its windy hair,
The sky and the wind echo
The light foot-steps of its coming-
The desired torture of the favourite one.
The horizon appears like a mirage,
Dauntless birds on the sandy beach,
Hawk’s eyes also are surprised,
It can’t fly and loses its course.
Liquid blood suffers from burning
And boils in veins with intoxicating bubbles,
Highly contagious in the veins,
And dangerous greed for the blood.
Lust’s crimson poison in the eyes
Birds in the thousand flames of crooked gaze;
Not satisfied yet, the body and soul
Craves life-long for wondrous pleasures,
The desert recedes under the feet,
The sea of sand is turbulent;
It’s sighing for a long time,
The unrest of the sandy sea begins,
Suddenly tears appear in dry eyes.
O the victor-hero! a hunter’s craze
Persists in my restless heart like that,
I hear the braying of a quadruped
I want to life the spear with force.
Would you initiate me into your doctrine,
O nomadic Bedouin!
I will start for the horizon without any track
And break earth’s dusky stupor with desert-sand.
Then you listen – I bear in my veins
That bestial blood of the past, and suffering
From the indomitable mute heart’s pangs
I will rise again – this is my prayer.
The serpent, which gradually became sharp-witted
And easily crossed hills and rivers
Turned long after into an old python and
Heard a soft call behind and wanted
To return to us past attachment.
I feel in my blood a craze for wayfaring,
So I roam about in search of the blind.
(Translated by Abdur Rashid Khan)
