My soul be the ransom of fair-complexioned and coy virgins…

My soul be the ransom of fair-complexioned and coy virgins who played with me as I was kissing the Pillar and the Stone!
When thou art lost in pursuit of them, thou wilt find no guide but in their scent, the sweetest of traces.
No moonless night darkened o’er me but I remembered them and journeyed in moonlight.
Only when I walk in their company of riders does the night seem to me like the sun in the morning.
My love urged me to dalliance with one of them, a beauty who hath no sister in humankind.
If she unveils her mouth, she will show to thee what sparkles like the sun in unchanging radiance.
The whiteness of her forehead is the sun's, the blackness of the hair on her brow is the night's: most wondrous of forms is she—a sun and a night together!
Through her we are in daylight during the night and in a night of hair at noon.