Al-Ashu'ara: I must speak only briefly, for the many enforcing hands and batons of justice seek me out even now.

Chorus: Speak swift, afore you be silenced.

Al-Ashu'ara: When they reach me, for respite I pray. I have committed no crime. There is no bloodguilt upon my hands.

Chorus: His hands clasp each other, yet but moments ago these clasping hands - brimming with pain and prayer - did put a man to his death.

Al-Ashu'ara: My hands are free of this murderous charge, for I have slain no man, but foul bestial soul I did rend. My eyes beheld the perverse as I saw his fist force the glinting blade into the chest of my beloved. Stricken with terror and the final miniscule cherub of his humanity, the murderer did run.

Chorus: What beast flees its guilt? Al-Ashu'ara you mind is feverish.

Al-Ashu'ara: Silence be upon your lips, would-be stainers of my name! By chance or by design sealing my fate, the wide-eyed beast did blindly run toward me. His unseeing gaze red and wild with some horror of his afflicted animal self - he did not perceive the swell of rage upon two legs that strode to meet his frantic flight.

Chorus: And your hands did meet his frantic flight and upon the man you threw your rage.

Al-Ashu'ara: What recourse had I? The man who forever silenced my lover's lips I crushed with my heel until his vicious heart was felled.

Chorus: Hear, Al-Ashu'ara. The sirens call outside your door. Pray they heed your story. Pray pray pray.

Al-Ashu'ara: I cry to them as I cry to you - my only offense is compassion.