When you told us our glances, soft, timid, and mild - Wallada bint al-Mustakfi

When you told us our glances, soft, timid, and mild,

      Could occasion such wounds in the heart,

Can ye wonder that yours, so ungovern’d and wild,

      Some wounds to our cheeks should impart?

The wounds on our cheeks, are but transient, I own,

      With a blush they appear and decay;

But those on the heart, fickle youths, ye have shewn

      To be even more transient than they.

---

Wallada bint al-Mustakfi (1011 - 1091) Spain

Translated by Joseph Dacre Carlyle

Source: Poets.org