1. A brief time of select progeny,
And an era whose loyalty is wondrous,

2. And a heart like the parchment of archers - wounded,
Its pages filled with scars,

3. And a bosom friend whose abode though near,
Yet a watcher parts me from his eyes,

4. Above the bridge of his nose are lines,
And below it a mound,

5. The lid of his eye contracts when he is tender,
And his embrace is spacious for lovers,

6. He wantonly joins his ears to his cheeks,
And on his trinkets are unspeakable beauties,

7. An eyelid and a palm cast arrows at him,
And all hearts' kernels desire him,

8. His days either a halt or a tour
Around a kingdom, or a leap then riding

9. Atop a racer of steeds swimming on,
With a neigh tearing out from it,

10. When he sets out in the morning fully armed,
My passionate heart is stirred,

11. And his gear's weight on the hind quarters
Has goaded his slender waist.

12. A suspended bow for battle and arrows
Of awe-inspiring sight were it not for love,

13. A gazelle you'd see roaming were it not
That to its like he's fierce in the hunt,

14. Valiant, when alone he's a troop, refined when accompanying,
When content he is smiling, when pride ascends him, frozen,

15. I say to him while fear holds back my words,
And tears pour forth violently,

16. "Did you draw me close only to spurn me
When you had me in your grasp, moaning and weeping?

17. You have broken my heart with indifference - take it back
As a youth returns what he dislikes,

18. Will you capture my heart but not fight for it?
How many fires were kindled till you captured fortresses,

19. If they seize the heart that lies in my chest,
To you thereafter I shall be a vagabond,

20. We are a people for yearning, as though
Created bodies that are all hearts,

21. Our night among tents is a shining one
Whose best the living snatches,

22. And fear of parting from the stars has become
A spell on the foolish night's gray hairs,

23. The ostrich visited us, stealthily grabbing glances
To conceal a union, though hiding is suspect,

24. Swaying with the branch when the breeze shakes it,
Bending as the fresh twig does,

25. A garden of roses amid which a meadow
Where the grazing is good and plentiful,

26. By God, a full moon ceaselessly watching
Its rising in eyes and its setting,

27. At an hour when the gazelles are slumbering,
And in us the wind of joy blows,

28. It swoops down to us in the darkness, only its face guides it,
No light leads it other than its own,

29. As the rightly guided state was guided
To everything it aimed at and hit,

30. By my life, it has retained all nobility,
Lofty goals for the sublime sought,

31. If it contends with the competent in glory, it surpasses them,
The noblest in nature and lineage prevails,

32. It has a pen that ascends from the palm a minbar,
Filling the age's hearing with its orator,

33. With its right hand from it the fetter of Ka'b, if untethered,
Spear points fall short of it though sharpened,

34. If the guiding opinion summons to a cause,
It answers the sublime with a respondent,

35. Muhammad, O son of the predecessors to loftiness,
Open-handed and firm when formidable appears,

36. The generous floods of praise dispersed for they saw
None but your hands deserved a share,

37. If units of praise present themselves, only
One sublime and watching over you renews them,

38. May you be ransomed by a time whose morning brightness you are,
While its sons are pallid and wan,

39. In you, as stars appear, are beauties,
In them, as darkness falls, flaws,

40. Tributes of noble ancestors you embraced,
And none like you embraces a tribute,

41. Reconsider with justice, like your name, toward us,
Unerring, for truth has a claim,

42. You, from whom glory remains for me,
Whom I seek refuge in hands open and munificent,

43. Wondrous are your gifts, wondrous my praises,
For each in time there is a parallel,

44. If it is verse composed beyond its era of passion,
Yet lengthened nights are plunderers of men,

45. My thoughts were pure in my youth,
But since aging my nature has changed,

46. It is not the line of grey hair on my head, but
My hair by which my poetry is made grey,

47. Scorched thirsty she-camels did not cut short the journey,
So their livers melt with yearning,

48. They mixed travel with night-journey till they reached it,
And the remains of their bodies wore out, persevering,

49. When they saw the water and they craving
And around it plentiful fertile grazing,

50. A piercing longing to reach it made them
Stretch their necks to the potable water,

51. With more passionate longing than I have for you
Though I shrink from meeting you fearing censure

52. Were it not for you I would not have returned to Iraq,
Revisiting the places of sweet wanderings,

53. These traverse the night stars with their stature,
That roam the wilderness with me,

54. So they journeyed in succession, following their shadows,
All arriving thirsty and craving water,

55. Why then, O son of nobles, do I after -
When the distant inner quarters have wronged me,

56. Whisper to the walls in despair intimations,
While in you are hopes never dashed?

57. And the informant has conveyed to me from you
Words lodged in my heart - how passionate for you!

58. Talk that scraped my heart - effective words,
Though many a discourse leads to marriage,

59. If what I heard is true, then nothing
Cures the disease of anguish but parting,

60. Yet my love remains in you,
And my gratitude stays while the Pleiades shine,

61. I was granted much then deprived of it,
And how many tribulations befall men!

62. Would that I knew a crime I'd committed,
That I may hope when repenting to be pardoned,

63. But confused, my heart knows not the path
To patience, or when my will shall return,

64. For amnesty or excuse from you I long
Whether offenses were mine or not,