In a dream came the soft-spoken sylph,
the soft-spoken and sweet-smiling sylph.
To soothe a devotee, she came as a celestial beauty,
the imagined damsel dwelling in my inner territory.
In an assignation came the indifferent sylph,
the paragon of beauty limned in my heart.
In a dream came the soft-spoken sylph… 

Translated by Mohammad Shafiqul Islam.

Mohammad Shafiqul Islam is a poet, translator, and academic, and Professor of English literature at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet, Bangladesh. Email: msislam-eng@sust.edu.