1. My heart craved only Umm ‘Amr, though I saw not
Her abode, however long my remembrance lingered hopefully.

2. The vicissitudes of fate have flowed until they altered,
And separation can create communion, which then grows weak.

3. Never was a secret love like my secret love,
That could be counted, nor an intimacy like what I shared.

4. Of the white ones, whose seekers sorrow comforts not,
Can the ardent youth have, when care has outstripped him?

5. A pasture it seems, as if the irrigation’s source therein
Were a sand-heap, and the pressed folds held nothing rich.

6. A torrent course for tears to flow, its seeker pleased
With joining it, he of the softness and dangling tresses.

7. As though her trace and scent of departure were
Far off perfumes drifting over them ceaselessly.

8. An embrace as if the musk were mixed with her breath,
And the slope of her shoulders gathered up languor.

9. She rivals rainwater in the shade of an overhang,
Sheltering her from the burning sun of midday’s heat.

10. No spindle ever of maidens’ blood was sacrificed more fair
In the depths of a valley whose torrent winds tortuously.

11. Fairer than she, that day she rose and her eye with
Her tears of the anguish of separation flowed over.

12. And night, I met Umm ‘Amr’s tent, dreading
Its main poles, and that arrogant, encroaching night.

13. The slit shoulder seams of her shirt seemed
Polished metal gleaming from the slit of her collar.

14. I kept vigil though sleep tempted his eye,
Remembering you, while sad love kindled debilitatingly.