1. The mistress of loss and wonder decreed my removal
By Allah, O guide of camels, wondrous is she to me

2. Mayhap if she hears my complaints, she will melt my youth away
With the pouring of tear-drops commiserating my youth

3. A huntress who spread her dewy traps to catch her prey
She hunted me heedlessly with the snare of love

4. She tried to bewitch me with her sweet words
When her glances were gentle, she spellbound my heart

5. With my soul which I willingly surrendered
Yet she was not content save taking it by force

6. A prophetess, the beauty of her glance and stature
Lethal to us, stabbing and striking in battle

7. She summoned us and we believed in her bewitching eyes
So she still brings terror to lovers’ hearts

8. Affirming my heart, negating it
Having power over me, to affirm and negate

9. Long have you extended my devotion, and long have I endured
Your might humbled even the lion, O gazelle of the wilderness

10. When Malik narrated the news of passion
Your beauty narrated it to my deepest feelings through al-Sha’bi

11. A bond of love, split by the splitter of seeds
With a fragment of my heart, it is of the splitting of love

12. How long, O the heart’s wish, will you prevent
My eyes from what they desire in loving you

13. What is the reason for your disdain? Should this
Be the reward of the lover for his love?

14. Greetings, O magnet for the hearts of mankind
Created by the Maker with the power of attraction

15. Leave off your necklace, O beautiful one, for verily
The beauty of the sun is beyond adornment by meteors

16. Do not veil yourself with a screen, for long has
Your brilliance in visions sufficed you without veils

17. I remembered my covenant with the sanctuary, so tears poured down
Like heavy rain bursting from laden clouds

18. I blinked my eyelids to vent my anguish
And they streamed blood, so my grief redoubled

19. I sought refuge in graceful patience, but when
Parting robbed me, it plundered without restraint

20. Had it not torn off the coat of my composure
The steeds of calamities would not have dared to war against me

21. They left, O my loved ones, so my heart followed them
Pouring itself forth singing after the traveling company

22. I will be patient so that no blamer supposes
I view their torment as anything but sweet

23. I will turn a blind eye, perhaps I will find
Relief for my heart after reproach

24. O my loved ones, what is this estrangement and aloofness?
What is my crime and what is my sin toward you?

25. My writ praises you
Emerging from layers of honor and purity

26. Love stems only from the soul’s depths, for indeed
The tongue translates only what the heart dictates

27. You grew distant, but what is distance to the heart that preceded you?
And perhaps you would meet it on the path

28. Let those who complained of my fate, without their fate complaining of them to me,
And warned me with manifold more than I was warned

29. And who strives, making their effort
To benefit their loved ones, as is my custom?

30. Lo! Who is there among people that can match me,
With a loyal friend whom God protected from the stain of lies?

31. I learned the lessons of days until it was as though
My companion was the close comrade disease pleurisy

32. And I treated the illnesses of souls, but found no cure
For the sickness of ignorance in the books of medicine

33. Beware belittling people toward you, for verily
The closer they draw by belittling, the further they are from West to East

34. Lo, may God not protect the covenant of a people
Who do not protect the covenants of Family and Companions

35. How remote are people of no benefit in their nearness!
Though that remoteness is better than their closeness

36. How many a fine lad of Banu ‘Ajil did I accompany
Until it became clear he was of the tribe of Banu Kalb

37. If I do not attain my due right with gentleness
I will seek it with sword or spear

38. Every perfect one is above every contemptible one
Of highborn, well-bred, pure-blooded steeds

39. A youth’s reproach of fate is sheer ignorance
Or else evident weakness in the people of complaint

40. Fate is but an hour followed by an hour
That pass heedlessly, deaf and unheeding

41. Lo, it is only the divine decrees that flow by the command of Him
To whom belongs command over what is effortless and difficult

42. My excuse is what the babbler has uttered, for verily
I have placed sincere words in the position of lies

43. God forgive those whom, after their remoteness,
I forgave when lands forgave them without sin