1. I see the days changing their shape,
Yet your love remains firmly lodged in my heart.

2. A love not altered by nights,
Impossible for separation to change it.

3. To her I gave my soul when I slept,
So my night after her parting was long.

4. She did not begrudge me a day of union,
But time itself was ungenerous to her.

5. A girl in her flowing robe, slender as a twig
Under her loincloth, a smooth belly.

6. The line of her shapely bust shows you
An upright, beautiful gazelle of the dunes.

7. She sways over hearts with poised grace—
In her charm and youth a touch of languor.

8. When she rests her fatigue, her heavy skirts
Make her sit.

9. I came to my love's abode though far,
My eyelids raining like April showers.

10. She did not stop being dragged to the valleys
And led now and then up winding paths.

11. My eyes and the thick clouds weep for her;
My heart and the soft breeze are sick for her.

12. My friends blamed me for my tears
One evening when the loved ones left.

13. They said: Spare your tears for your loved ones,
Since through your tears the hills flowed.

14. Love forbid that I find litters
When those I love traveled on camels!

15. A shame that you rein in your tears
On a day of separation—beautiful is my patience!

16. So neither the tears flowed nor the torment cooled
When their convoy turned away.

17. In my ribs were some who, were it not for my love,
My emaciated body would not have clung to.

18. Had it not been for a sleepless night of memories,
My heart would not have been struck by the flash of lightning.

19. A day we had was short at the cavern,
While the days of reunion do not last.

20. We stole it, evading the sleepless one
Who forgot to keep our company whole.

21. Why, O Time, do you gloat over betraying me?
Are grudges and resentments done with?

22. How loss lessens my glory
And sloth takes away my alertness!

23. It twists the hopes I set store by
And my debts to it unravel into length.

24. Demands have stood between me and my wishes
While the days change.

25. Soon I shall attain them, while the nights
Are tucked away, their spies concealed.

26. This especially since Mansur ibn Nasr ibn
Mansur the Generous sponsors me.

27. A youth whose help has pleased my wayward fortune,
So it became submissive, obedient.

28. The virtues shook him, to grant me success,
As the polished sword shakes in its sheath.

29. He gave me from his kindness a sword
To drive back the shameless times;

30. And dressed me in a coat of mail of bounty
At which tongues and blades bristle.

31. When the purses of gifts were depleted,
Extravagance and overabundance then filled them.

32. Your sanctuary, O Supporter of the Faith, harbored
A surge of hopes in us like guests;

33. And hope brought us down in a spacious abode
Whose hospitality the guest praises.

34. The rope of destiny's changed, its strength
Cut off, while the rope of other than it lies severed.

35. It fears the passage of nights,
While the fickle flees its gifts.

36. It protected the frontier of the realms with a hero
Whose bared arm the elbow-joint obeys.

37. Its redoubts are steeds marked with brands,
And the best redoubt of Arabs is horses.

38. He inclines in his kindness like the acacia boughs bend,
As their dangling pods sway.

39. The sheen of meadows excites his heart
When the herds are roused and neighing arouses him.

40. Some sought to rival you, O Ibn Nasr,
But the way was closed to the rival.

41. They aspired to your lofty station, but
For it a help against its rider is frail.

42. So the distance frayed them, a noble steed
Whose flourishing side the honors smooth.

43. How remote from attaining gems is the dust!
How can pebbles match jewels!

44. You were forbearing, so the hills of Jerusalem raved,
You were generous, so the rain was miserly.

45. One time you tilted your cheek to the friend,
Another time to the foe it was bent.

46. You attained such heights of glory
That minds fall short and peers falter.

47. In the signs of the Book that testify to his merit
What can a person say!

48. O Abu Bakr, your rule there is new,
Its auspices for you: a life prolonged!

49. A forefather no ill omens can touch
And joy whose ascendant cannot set!

50. Your abode was not devoid of congratulations
And the tent-pegs were lodged in your province.

51. I complained to you of the lack of equity,
Knowing that for me you have bounty unmatched,

52. To preserve from my pacts what a friend forgot
And what eluded the thoughts of a comrade.

53. Though they cut their ties in disdain,
You are the benefactor, the shelteringtent pole.

54. On you their slander glided: untrue, unjust—
Intimacies in hearts where they gained acceptance.

55. Virtues no vulgarity of men degraded
Nor did baseness defile them.

56. In their clan an ancient lineage,
When they trace it, and a worthy house, noble.

57. Their kin are Murrith and Ibn Aws
And their forebears: Mubarrid and Khalil.

58. Praise like the breath of Khuzami poets
Walked about in their quarters and met acceptance,

59. Just as a songstress from Syria strolled
Through the gardens of grief—for her a long tail.

60. When she declaimed in her eloquence
The stalwarts cowered at her powerful voice.

61. She esteemed contentment and went astray in modesty;
Some poetry is despised and vile.

62. Before you I feared her hand might stretch
Greedily toward it. How far from you is such singing!

63. If praise wearies the generous,
How can a miser accept it from me!

64. I have seen that poetry was uttered by many,
A host of them, but the excellent are few.

65. So do not make her bored, God forbid
That any but you should please with songs.

66. And live as long as the love-crazed raves
And anguish inspires the sleepless ruins.