1. My friend, longing is not that the grit should grind
for two thousand years, then meet again,

2. But separation is that the grit should collect
and I be prevented from seeing and you from seeing me.

3. We were generous friends, a group whose love
was lodged between us which we preserved with fair propriety.

4. My companion said one day when we recalled the former love
while my eyes were weeping from the excess of passion:

5. "Is it because of a house between Lawdhān and Naqā’
that tomorrow your eyes will rove?”

6. So I said: “No! Rather I am sick, though
the sickness of the eye is from what stirred the traces.”

7. O Talehatain, Lawdhān does not cease to be in you both
a refuge for him who seeks your shade.

8. If you have turned away from love today
and come near to what is not to be approached,

9. My friend, I have longed and you two have slept.
Are you then to be approached?

10. They said: “You have slept the night, then called us
while we are fearful, quaking boys.”

11. Rise wherever you wish, we are wherever we desire.
If you shoot at us for a tryst, we will flee.

12. My friend, there is no counsel in one breast.
Advise me today what you two see.

13. Shall I embark on a difficult matter? Its smoothness
is with Najrān but everyplace tires me out.

14. My friends, I am cured of the jaundiced folk,
and cured of evil suspicions.

15. Come! Carry me, may God bless you two,
to Hadir al-Qur’ā’, then leave me.

16. In truth, servants of God, I do not walk
along the crooked road until the two assemblages are mustered.

17. Nor a day given over to sport with slender waisted fair ones,
who seduce us until our minds go astray,

18. and who mix clear lies with thoughtful utterance,
until our minds go astray and who mix clear lies with thoughtful utterance.

19. My friend, as for Umm ‘Amr, she is one of them,
and do not ask me about the other, they do not treat me fairly,

20. They forbid me, they are unjust, they do not do me justice
for their two sakes while they have tricked me.

21. Must you roam her lands each day
with two eyes that drowned a man?

22. Love saw my body other than my frame -
tender, though I speak with my tongue!