1. You went away, yet separation's rule is not just
Is there no share for me in you but separation?

2. You folded your musky cheek from me and your
Beautiful cheek the day my anguish appeared and the cheeks of the young women.

3. You dropped me when you thought I was a companion
As if I were the letter 'ra' in the word 'companion'.

4. And a quarter of your family, desolate, made me lonesome
So I clung to a heart burning with the embers of passion.

5. You left my eyes like a pond at dawn
It is the meadow missing the flowing rivers.

6. So be a unifier between the pond and the meadow
That my life may grow green and I may obtain good fortune.

7. And who can make my life grow green when my intentions
Are withered palms from which my days slip.

8. You were secretly pleased that parting from me is harmful
And you were fooled that my love kills me.

9. It is enough for you that separation spread its arrows
And directed them at me, so they were silenced as warriors.

10. You frightened me with water falling from the eye
Blindness which, from water to the eye, descends.

11. You indulged in juicy discourse like your buttocks
While I, with a lean body like your slender waist, abstained.

12. So instill in me intimacy, then intimacy's mingling
Through the folds of your torment, the gushing springs.

13. Since the fourty knots tied me in their ropes
The earth appears to my eyes like a whirling sieve.

14. And my white hairs are only torches
With the fire of my heart the light of those torches.

15. And graying is but graying of youth with motes
And its line only the warner of departing youth.

16. It bends the canal of old age into an arc and glistens
White amidst the black currents with the swords unsheathed.

17. And were it not for the harvest of life, the bodies would not
Stoop in old age like sickles.

18. A cloud of youth provided the meadow of my joy
But it passed away, and the act of clouds is not everlasting.

19. In my brain is a pounding throb from its outpouring
And in my temples a lightning like the false lightning of blinks.

20. God watered the days of youth - it was their right -
With milk of overflowing breasts for bliss in legions.

21. And delighted their ears with the melody of song
And stirred their gazes with the wine of Babylon.

22. And gave pasture, like the field of a warrior,
Which the hand of fate harvested, for it to fade.

23. The order of the kingdom is but a cloud
From which the life of all vanishes, settler and roamer.

24. It is like the sea, but calmer,
And like the moon, but less waning.

25. Its spring, when it dawns, arouses hope
And in it is pollen for wishes in multitudes.

26. When people depart from its courtyard
And unleash the saddled she-camels' leading ropes,

27. I saw the female servants spreading its generosity
Even if their backs complain of the howdahs.

28. So their imaginations of praising its subtleties
And their judgments of its gifts are glorious.

29. The most noble thing to it is a begging voice
And the lowliest thing to it is the word of a critic.

30. It is perfect in description and deed
Open-handed, gentle-faced, refined in traits.

31. I smell the scent of one tall in stature, distracted by amusement
Delicate, broad in prominence, complete in virtues.

32. A young man the ministry forgot its wisdom over
When the midwives entrusted him to the cradle.

33. He pillowed on the rock of the generous elite
And suckled at the breasts ofprotected women in multitudes.

34. So he came just as his ministerial gown would befittingly clothe
One naturally disposed to the heights wrapped in slippers.

35. May God give him success leading to glory
And an omen of good and open-handedness.

36. And a helper for the kingdom, a guard for the monarchy
A churner for wealth, and a palm bearing sincerity.

37. If he waves the palm of favor the train of his garment
Trails shyly and the eyelid's light dims from bashfulness.

38. And if he loosens the mouthpiece of eloquence, speaking
You become perplexed in applying joints to it.

39. Through him the sprigs of time grew green and its herbs trembled
And every noble pointed to his purpose.

40. I blame time as its blessing descended upon me
And made me drink from its cups of unending charity.

41. It shook my pillar and I collapsed from its shaking
As the shaking of tremors crumbles pillars.

42. My birds scattered, my standards flipped
My demons raged, and my bronze pots boiled.

43. And how can I see myself trodden by feet
Pacified from me or like the resting place of anklets.

44. Behind me are children and behind me a life
Upon incapacitated palms the reddest dye.

45. And the gift of my service made me hope for it
And a claim of belonging emphasized by evidence.

46. And I have hope the folly of youth will depart
That's the nature of white hair in sidelocks and forelocks.

47. And companionship of days past, as if their
Migrants are clothed in the shade of origin.

48. Nights we wore and touched in beautification
And found them subtle in their stratagems.

49. And how many intimate times I have with it
Moments beyond all moments, endless.

50. Periods, as if I'm a player with their rhythms
Thirstily with the tinkling of anklets, freely with their bells.

51. Tantalizing in every club, its stories
Melodious in every valley, my anklets.