1. A phantom from Sulaima passed by at night,
Keeping me and my companions awake in anguish,

2. So I spend my nights turning over my affairs,
Watching for her folk though they are far.

3. Though my eyes have glimpsed a fire,
For which Dhi l-Arta provides the fuel,

4. With tangled hair, a pressing crowd;
Gazelles and wild cows lying down around it.

5. Gentle ladies who brook no misery of life,
Companions who neither nod off nor slumber,

6. Stirring together with the slow gait that shows their trailing gowns,
Wrapped in their mantles and cloaks.

7. They lodged in one place, while I lodged in another,
So ties were cut and pacts broken.

8. Why do I wander while my troth is betrayed?
Why do I still hunt though I take no game?

9. Many a rosy-checked virgin, shapely and plump,
Of branching collar-bones and swelling breasts,

10. A gazelle, with scattered and sweet-scented desert plants,
Of pure hue, radiant, cool,

11. I toyed with for a time in my youth,
While poets recited their odes.

12. People - whenever I contracted a new passion,
They broke it off with yet another.