1. O you who weep, I ransom you with my own weeping,
Why and for what do you hasten calamities?

2. Restrain yourself, grief does not please you as a boon companion,
And alas, I cannot please you by grieving.

3. One whom I used to call a friend rebukes me,
He did not stop until I called him treacherous.

4. I prayed to my Lord when a blamer called me,
And I did not disobey Him by not answering his call.

5. Their rebuke became cheap to me when
My eyes intended, I made the precious things cheap.

6. Shall I prevent water that quenches a brother’s thirst
When I did not protect the waterholes, blocking them?

7. Weeping and wailing are like a fighter’s blows upon me,
Yet I cry for I am not a weeper.

8. How can I feel comforted after Hind
When between us lies a formidable desert, no wind passes through it?

9. In it the deer howls from the folds,
Roaming by day, its night folded by fear.

10. I used to fear we may be separated
Today I fear we may not reunite.

11. O you whose heart’s worries do not sleep
And whose nights do not sleep the nights.

12. I saw the nights continuously frightening me
With their events, what is it to the nights and what is it to me?

13. No misfortunes remain with fate that I fear
Then why does fate apologize if I complain?

14. If you have no remedies or consolations for me
Then do not blame me and leave me be.

15. For I saw blame kindles my youthfulness
I knew the flints by striking produce light.

16. Oh, excellent were the bygone days of life
Oh, excellent, if only it would come back again.

17. A time like a child’s heart, pure and pleasing,
Sweet, but like a dream, fleeting.

18. I yearn for it at night and at dawn,
A stranger’s yearning, brought by ardent desire.

19. I remember it like an old woman her youth,
I cry at its memory, red-eyed.

20. Were it not for matters in my heart I keep secret
I would silence fate, make it listen to my tongue.

21. My friend, the happy years are fleeting moments
Its days were almost seconds.

22. The finest days of youth are childhood days
The best childhood what was nurtured in love.

23. May God watch over the days I wasted
As if I wasted my own heart.

24. Nights Hind neither believes a slanderer
Nor fears I would believe a slanderer.

25. Often we stayed awake, none with us but the gentle wind
We confide in it, so it brings desires nearer.

26. The abode where love occupied our talk,
At times confiding, at others complaining.

27. Do you not see that I strung her speech
Into pearls singing their rhythms.

28. The days of play turned away like a phantom in the meadows
After them you do not see me playing again.

29. I dislike all of life’s pleasures
If Hind pleased, I would dislike my own youth.

30. Peace upon Hind though my hearing missed it
The peace I send to her.

31. She sees that I keep true to the pact
Though this separation melts my bones.

32. By God, I do not fear pigeons upon crumbs,
Rather I fear my eternal isolation.