1. My beloved from Qays ibn Aylan is my confidante
My mount, head towards its winding paths

2. By your life, O one of happy auspice, I am
At ease with the scent of spirit from its knots undone

3. Behold, it is the landmarks from its highlands
How can the eye refrain from its flowing tears?

4. Leave me be, and the shedding of tears, perhaps
It will soothe what has been stirred of its memories

5. For the scent of the wild cows has wafted as though
The greeting of Sulayma has blown in its breaths

6. And Taima is for the heart that yearns a place to lodge
So head with surrender to its stairways

7. And if you bring joy to one whose heart is patient
He will wed the pasture of dunes from its expanses

8. Its open country of loss is a familiar open country
I have plucked passion’s fruit from its produce

9. Its garden of song is a theatre garden
Strolling through it intoxicated by its script

10. There are lines in the roots of glory
Resembling the straight reed some of its growth

11. Feelings of love’s madness and shrine of charm
My heart by its pilgrims and supplicants

12. So often has the hand of wishes met me there
And how much the spirit of joy has blown from its heights

13. I knew it as idols of beauty, I knew them
Passionate for its pride and its patron

14. I make my longing for it lawful and am wary
Of its laws in love, truly fearing its severity

15. A love like Ibn Ma’n’s valiance and a passion
Like his munificence, and the land in its crises

16. The knight of determination and generosity who vied
To the utmost attaining its reeds

17. His hands owe a debt like Ka’b and Hatim
So the ages are destined to join in his prayers

18. He wages war for the essence of dew with his wealth
And no army but that of his palms’ blades

19. When the full moon hangs over them its crescents
At the hands of its loyalists the heads of its foes

20. And how many a band has seen the view of dissenters
Yet you were Ali in the wars of its leagues

21. With the resolve of one whose brilliance cannot be repelled
Can the spheres refrain from their rotations?

22. He who makes the excited one calm and his canine tooth
Passion, so it does not exceed the hearts of the silent

23. And how Egypt on its Nile’s Nile wooed me
And Baghdad longed for me, bouquet of its Euphrates

24. And I was not pleased by any land but the place of my origin
And if I met the sun in the sky of its rising

25. And I have hope that if fortune favours I will attain it
And the soul’s secret is understood in its symbols

26. The sweetest wish is what I attained in the spring of youth
And can things improve after their passing?