1. He forbade me naught but glory and resolve;
And taught me to shake off irresolution with resolve.

2. So I was patient with beautiful patience through the nights,
That I spent, after the joys of communion, in isolation.

3. Leave me alone to face the flood of tribulation,
And overcome the pouring of clouds with endurance.

4. And look at me, O Sa'd, in my splendor,
In contentment - and none whom I contented was ungenerous.

5. And a faint echo have I left, which deceives him
Who errs in the religion of love, wittingly.

6. He wronged me in his ignorance within his sanctuary;
And when the sanctuary is small the crime is magnified.

7. To God I complain of this age, for it injures
The high-aspiring, bold, venturesome hero.

8. Sweet to me was the time when its potion was drunk
Pure, though after our separation it was like poison.

9. Therewith my beloved's saliva wets my bridle-bit -
Then he went away, and called the unjust man just.

10. Slowly, O tireless travellers to the preserve!
Not thus is the pictured idea fixed with exactitude.

11. Gently! May God guide you to the pictured idea, from which
Comes naught but what the imagination depicts.

12. I remember when I took my course, intending
The steadfast one's abode whose will was resolute.

13. I claimed from him the rights of my passion,
Though in his judgment it was unsoundness.

14. And I listened to his words; and their perfume rent me,
So that in my hearing and smell I was intoxicated.

15. He went away: he was but a phantom figured
In graceful forms which he suggested to the mind.

16. Their images pass through the drowsy mind,
And so perplex me that I forget my foe and my friend.

17. I shared with the days, which know not how they pass,
Till I made the distant one who had gone far off my arrow's target.

18. I exceeded the limit in ignorant youth,
And in my knowledge - I think I said my knowledge.

19. I hid my right through the vanity of her claim,
Nor distinguished between concealment and suppression.

20. I met her with forbearance, knowing that she,
Though extravagant in folly, is overcome by forbearance.

21. How many sincere monitors have said - and they were deceiving -
"Your perseverance in this forbearance is a kind of wrongdoing!"

22. I said to them: "Leave off your censure, for I
See my patience springs in my being's essence."

23. And truly I am of the house whose glory is published aloud,
And whose glories among Arabs and Persians are proclaimed.

24. Though I consort with one who has injured my reputation,
You will see the pearl-white radiance in the coal.

25. Nor have I lacked noble sweet herbs, but many, many
A glorious one has perished in love of me today.

26. And in the corners are dear beloved ones,
Black but towering in will above the rising of the stars.

27. Sprung from the original stock of the noble whose branches
Are honored, of lofty and harmonious structure.

28. Their firm souls restore the tattered at their determination,
And turn the silver of India to the sheath the brighter for wounds.

29. One whose time is blemished blames me for patience,
While blind desire has blinded him as to the wise ordinance.

30. I acquiesced in God's judgment in everything that befalls me,
Though its meaning, to one who seeks protection, is obscured.

31. My Lord does the deed and its opposite, while the helpless man
Can but - if he is a cup - receive the deed in his receptacle.