1. To whom is this love poetry addressed,
When my heart has departed with the one who left?

2. Your affections diminish as you draw near,
While my patience for your absence grows less.

3. My eyes have not blinked away their tears,
But weep for you and pine in your absence.

4. I watch the specters of the vanished beloveds
Who once drew near, now departed and gone.

5. In the abandoned camp, the dimmed eyes
Of the sleepless lovers gaze through the openings.

6. Their yearning melts my heart with torment,
For the easiest thing in love is what kills.

7. And my lover wrongs me with his indifference;
What can be done with an unjust oppressor?

8. The dark-haired gazelles and the white-faced does,
The yellow partridges and red foxes.

9. We appealed to the intercessor of youth,
And journeyed in rebellion against the one who spurned.

10. Until the wine of farewell mixed
Its draft within the cups of kisses.

11. So praise be to that blessed time,
And praise be to those first covenants.

12. I was startled when a shooting star appeared,
Like the flash of lightning through an opening.

13. For youth is but a vessel
Bearing us to frivolity and foolishness.

14. Would that I might enjoy in old age
The beauty of the gazelle and the grace of courtship!

15. I bid farewell to that life,
Which was but mascara tinting the eyelids.

16. I love neither the dark wine nor the white,
Save what intoxicates or makes sleepy.

17. For pride belongs only to one
Who grasps the pearls in his right hand,

18. Whose tent poles are held in his grip
And whose striking place is predetermined.

19. He grows more inflamed by the embers of battle,
While the coward is extinguished within it.

20. The sparks are smothered by her
Whose fury sets the armor ablaze when she storms.

21. My words dazzle the listeners
When prolonged, and persuasive though brief.

22. My honor contends with the prey of kings—
I neither grant concession nor accept humiliation.

23. I have patience for the tribulations of fate,
Hoping, "Perhaps it will be better."

24. Abul-Faraj, hear the call of one
Who has become proverbial in your love.

25. Recognize the details of what I have endured,
And listen to some of these phrases:

26. My last enjoyment in the shade of bliss
Was your company, before it departed.

27. I bid farewell to your glory, not out of boredom,
And left your excellence, not out of weariness.

28. Time marched against us, stumbling,
Slow to rise, quick to fall.

29. They launched attacks on Isfahan
To drive out the most honored of the disgraced.

30. My stay at its gates grew long
And I feared the enormity of the darkness that descended.

31. So I returned to Arjan, like one who flees
Toward drowning from wetness.

32. I found myself in a desolate place,
Pressured between two sides of the scale.

33. He stretched his bow with both hands
And poured arrows upon it mercilessly.

34. I lost what I had inherited
And gained no fleeting enjoyment from life.

35. I returned to you, wandering the distances,
Stumbling on the flat lands and the mountains,

36. Until I came to you after tribulation,
With nothing left of me but the smallest part.

37. Time has not wearied my stubbornness—
Far be it from you to tire of supporting me!

38. It is easy for the revolving heavens
To bring forth a faded star when they wish.

39. How often has the moon waned
Only to be faced by the fullness of the sun!

40. How often you have said, then done good—
Not all who speak words will act them out.

41. How often a prolonged time has bitten me
With strong jaws full of calamities!

42. None revived my soul except the swift one,
Race to praise—He is the Wise, the Eternal!

43. He healed the sick of hope through gifts,
The excellence of highness above the excellence of healing.

44. Make up for the remainder of a soul that is past,
And kindly compensate for this deficiency.

45. You are as the enlightened desire,
The brother of wisdom, accomplishing whatever is decided.

46. A youth whose palm
Has long turned the affairs of kingdoms into necklaces and loosened knots.

47. No purpose eluded him in deliberation,
No slip befell him in haste.

48. White like an ancient sword,
Passed through the ages by the hands of kings.

49. He possesses from time the beauty of speech,
While all others are lesser than he.

50. The garden steals its bloom from his character,
And it is the nobility of poetry to be derived from him.

51. The rainclouds draw from his generosity,
Though a man may bestow what he was not asked.

52. The springtime saw the beauty of your character,
And the roses bloom only in shyness before you.

53. Your exaltation settled the necks of the age,
Though they had been most inclined to abandonment.

54. You have remained in a fortunate time,
And you have remained in a promising lifetime.

55. None blunted your blade but that it destroyed,
None sparked your lightning but that it struck.