In summer, when sleep has restored strength to my body,
When the eye of light has dispersed the shades of night,
And when the heat bites everything, even into stone,
The song of the turtle-dove fills me with soft desire.
In the boughs of the palm-tree shaken by the slightest breeze,
On the leaf that sighs and bewails itself,
She is consumed with passion.
By my head! she rekindles in my breast the fire of bygone days.
They said to me:
Ah! thou art still longing for them who dye their eyelids with black?