1. Love and yearning intermingled
So it wept, and I lamented its weeping from its inner depths

2. The antelope-eyed maidens bid it to nightly trysts
So it came to pace the stars in their setting

3. The slender-waisted called it to cherished intimacy
So she clothed it in the yellow silk of her robes

4. The eyes of the singing girls cast upon it what
The drinking companion casts in his goblets

5. O you who has a heart illuminated by his heart
As if his soul were the glass of his lamp

6. A fawn lent by the slender-waisted their sickness
Where are the healers from his precious remedy?

7. It thought shedding tears would quench its fire
Foolishly, so it flared up more violently

8. Who will unite me with the cheek of a sleepy gazelle
Who glanced at me for a moment under the letter noon in her eyelashes

9. By the whiteness of his assisting arm, my agony
By God, no crooked hand made his bracelet

10. His beauties drew near and the ease of reaching him
So the full moon appeared among its mansions

11. How much darkness in it I blamed
Until the dawn’s fire shone through its casements

12. Many a frequenter of ruins, if he called on the inanimate
Would add to its delight

13. And I observed time and its people
And examined the eye of criticism in its groups

14. I saw time’s mare too dear
In her state of intoxication and temperament's balance

15. Sometimes the fool thinks he wakes up
But no, it is only to lure him

16. The heart of fate loves every wondrous thing
It only reveals to the couples it weds

17. And I saw the most precious thing it had
Were its lords, and to me the pearl of its crown

18. A tribe established in generosity, piety
Giving, kindness, since its offspring

19. Noble, if the earth lacked direction to life
And he complained of thirst, watering it from his leather bottle

20. A hero, when he shakes the spears with his palms
Hearts become fragments for his glass

21. A lion, if he meets Thursday, he has before him
The ram of al-Kathibah among the lowest of her sheep

22. A pack of lions, when they meet him in battle
Fearfully, he changes his roar to bleating

23. The mountains tremble when he passes
The buzzing of flies pounds in their bodies

24. He feeds on the flesh of muscular horses
And more heat increases the cooking of its broth

25. Its benefits are hoped for and its harm is feared
On the day of its ascent and the day of its rage

26. Eulogy grew dim and they toiled at its composition
Until he came and set up the market of its jewels

27. O son of the one who ruled people and son of the one
Who surpassed angels in the loftiness of his steps

28. If I wanted to praise you
The stars would swoop down to me from their mansions

29. And if I intended others than you in it
My hand would reap only the whites of eggs

30. You supported the religion of truth after despondence
And you fortified each of its gaps with precision

31. And you cured its ailment with books that have become
Like natural dispositions in their balance of temperament

32. Books of truth, every invalid adversary
Will know the lies of his debate from them

33. A clear light that illuminated the darkness of passion
The darkness of misguidance by the illumination of its lamp

34. And a deep pool after the winds of doubts had toyed with it
And settled from its turbulence

35. You rained upon it with a cloud you named
The best speech, so it was too vast for its waves

36. And in the subtleties of rhetoric you showed us
The erased from its method

37. And so a selection of exegesis whose fabric
No hand spun on its loom

38. For the lame, though their merits appear
They will not reach a tenth of its ascent

39. My Master, fasting has departed in farewell
And the month of breaking fast has come to you in delight

40. A month determined to kill fasting with its claws
So it ambushed its bowels with the talons of its heel