1. The rain's greeting is a spring whose clouds
Water 'Aqiq though their sportive drippings be powerful;

2. Nay, but on the living outspread are its mantles,
On the suns, while its columns are blameworthy,

3. Until there comes down to it a sign that has threaded
Its antelopes the rain, or its gazelles have alighted.

4. So amidst hatreds he is wrongfully turned away from his songs,
Singing for other than him, or shunning him.

5. And in the abodes one who hears not though you make him hear,
A pleader whom you address not.

6. Until he changes for the enamored his fraud,
A phantom that bars the enamored from his companion,

7. Going secretly to the moon, hiding the moon stealthily,
While the moon disdains that its fine qualities be hidden

8. When dawn appears in the orient of its rising,
It shows you the night black-dark in its robes;

9. And beauty and opposite are two things I know not
Which of the two perplexed me, its splendors or its glooms,

10. Its trinkets, its scollops, its ambergris,
Each is wished for, or guarded from, by its spy;

11. So I know not, when the horizon's forms march
In procession, which is livelier, its easts or its wests.

12. But eulogy - its beauties are not favored
By kings, as its faults are favored.

13. And the critic may do the dinar injustice,
Though its fashioner has clad it in beauty's knocking.

14. I am like the prince of poesy from whom
Their mantles mounted to nobler station,

15. And had he prayed evil on Iraq, his bolts
Would have struck it, like his rain poured down.

16. Say to him whom his hand collared while I
Drew near him, while he drew me yonder,

17. "Safety to you, if his lines flow
From their lurking place, or his fingers creep!"

18. No friend is he who gives you his witness
Honey of affection, while he cheats absence behind its back.

19. How much speech like pounded musk is its outer
Which gained no due with Abu Ishaq fulfilled!

20. Our praises were spurious trinkets
Adorning him - but they have taken to reproaching him.

21. And what shall I say of him whom excellence fitly suits
In rank of glory, whiteness matching white?

22. Deceive the redundant of my praise! Its merit
Like pearl beads' secret suits its concealers.

23. The true friend, his troth halts not,
Nor swerves from the friend, or is unjust.

24. I am at rest from lies and untruth
To which he inclines, evil speech its utterer;

25. No warp is found in him for blame,
Whence, and of what gold, its warpings shaped!

26. He prophesied of me, but I know not for his prophecy
My fortune's fangs or its disasters.

27. Swords to a people whose water of unsheathing
Gave joy, to others their blades.

28. The rain, if its artifacts smile my way,
Their downpours pour on other than I their overflowing clouds.

29. This, and their hearing has not been gladdened
By my compositions, nor its gifts gone waste;

30. And I have of praised lore a fruit
To which they repair, its ways matching;

31. An eagerness which, whenever it came inclined
To it, by its majesty its bent was turned away;

32. And I struck much of it that was razed with its smart,
Hot bolts striking, sweet robes trailing;

33. I returned in the perfume of the breaths, productive fruit
Near the thrower's hand its ripeness.

34. You punished me with estragement I cannot endure,
Is your punishment, in its issues, praised?

35. Your opinion of me turned to black, its daybreak
I knew as white in its evening!

36. Poetry is a fawn whose pelt you stroke -
Understanding, a necklace of pearls you thread;

37. Why then forbid the benefactor his benefaction
When no suitor attained your abounding glory?

38. Flourishing praise, if you do it justice, is a bloom
Whose scent is sweet if its drinking place be sweet.

39. Is it justice to jam its gardens with your plain
And water its willows that you may drink?

40. I scattered for a people pebbles of words -
Had you willed, its planets might have scattered upon you!

41. But for you, their robes had not been worn, but returned
Still splendid while long their trains;

42. I will be patient over your pact's breach with me
Till he who roamed return to the known;

43. Perhaps blame will restore favor from you,
And the suitor attain the long sought!