1. Longing kindles you, or is it lightning flashing from Najd
Its light illuminates whatever anguish comes from ardour

2. It leaned, enfeebled, while the stars were like
Lamps of monks burning from afar

3. I yearned for him after my companions fell asleep
With a hermit's yearning for flowers

4. He reminds me of an age spent in sanctuaries
And our days in the banner of the single standard

5. When Umm 'Amr grazed like a gazelle
In Wadi Al-Khuzama, a meadow of soft soil and tangled hair

6. The coquetry of her tattoo, the allurement of her sculpted form
The provocation of her hips, the allure of her slender waist

7. I kept the promise to her which no hardships made me break
Nor did the passage of time cause me to alter it

8. Oh breeze, from the hill of Rahat and the sanctuaries
How did you find your way to India?

9. You avoided us though the sea lies between you and India
With no ships protected by the harbours from storms

10. So India's perfume hides its origin
Shyly, its scent of roses and ambergris does not appear

11. Did the people of the sanctuaries favour you with a waft
That you became, resplendent zephyr, the perfume of the chilled air?

12. If love reunited me with them
What grateful hand would I have for love?

13. The days continue to draw their swords
And sharpen them until they uproot all I own

14. So I took to wandering the lands as though
I were an irritation depriving eyes of sleep

15. No sorrow remains whose surface I did not examine
No plain remains I did not drag my cloak over

16. I struggle and time struggles against me in every ambition
Oh what misfortune is my lot, how I struggle and how time struggles!

17. An outcast of time that found no consolation for its turmoil
Apart from the door of the noble house and its flower wreaths

18. When worries settled on its atoms
And cast their staff amidst the bustling throngs

19. My life slipped away and was relieved of passion
My worries fell asleep and my brow was raised