[Tes]1 jeunes seins sont frais comme le clair de lune.
Ta chair sous mes baisers semble une chair de fleur.
Oh ! comment les [compter]2 et décrire une à une,
Ces beautés en ton corps d'une exquise pâleur ?

About the headline (FAQ)

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Confirmed with Œuvres de Jean Lahor. En Orient, Paris, Alphonse Lemerre, 1907, page 20.

Note: This is not a translation. Al-Ghazali left no known poetry; these quatrains were written by Jean Lahor (pseudonym of Henri Cazalis), who imagined himself into Al-Ghazali's life and thought, adopting the quatrain form because it was current in Omar Khayyam's era.

¹ Fairchild: "Ah ! douce nuit chaude et pâmée !/ Tes"
² Fairchild: "soupir"

Text Authorship:

• by Henri Cazalis (1840 - 1909), as Jean Lahor, no title, appears in En Orient, in 1. Les Quatrains d'Al-Ghazali, in 1. Les amours, in 1. L'Amour de la Femme, no. 19 [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

[ None yet in the database ]

The text above (or a part of it) is used in the following settings:

• by Blair Fairchild (1877 - 1933), "Nocturne", op. 40 no. 3 [ high voice and piano ], from Quatrains d'Al-Ghazali, no. 3, London, Augener
      Score: IMSLP [external link]
  • View the full text. [sung text checked 1 time]
    

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

• ENG English (Grant Hicks) , copyright © 2026, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Grant Hicks [Guest Editor] , Joost van der Linden [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2023-05-03
Line count: 4
Word count: 39

[Your]1 young breasts are fresh like the moonlight.
Your flesh under my kisses seems the flesh of a flower.
Oh! how to [count]2 and describe them one by one,
These beauties in your exquisitely pale body?