1. Oh how I wish for the days of youth
When I was in the prime of my life

2. Dragging the tail of the morning breeze recklessly
With no one to command or forbid

3. Until grey hairs appeared on my temple
And their first signs were my last

4. An old age that leapt over the backs of days
So I welcomed this visitor

5. It came to me gently and with tranquil eyes
While passionate youth denied it

6. And it was pleasing to comfort the sleeping
While wakeful youth rejected it

7. And I had sworn to hide the eye of a lover
That would sleep upon his fluttering heart

8. Yet when we met, despite the thinness
My heart concealed it from my eyes

9. And when the white locks emerged
They shamed the radiant moon

10. Exposing the forbearance of the wise to the foolishness of the impetuous
And unravelling the knots of the skilled youth

11. In them is a companionable conversation
And in generosity like pouring rain

12. With a languid glance - oh what a pity!
My heart is indifferent to that

13. Oh reproacher, if you but tasted love
You would excuse her love

14. You blame while your heart is not torn
Indeed your affairs are confused

15. I say to a caravan prepared to depart
Having donned the garb of travelers

16. And stopped from the flames of farewell
Upon burning embers aflame

17. Some with tears frozen in parting
Others with tears flowing copiously

18. When you pass by Wasit
Stop by its flourishing side

19. And convey my greetings to one absent
Yet present in my thoughts

20. How long shall I postpone meeting him
And don the garb of patience?

21. Since you left Iraq, it has narrowed around me
Like a necklace around a neck

22. It's as if when you were shielded from me
I was left without a watcher

23. Due to my intense longing for you
I am broken without a mender

24. Gloomy in spirit, though I pretend
To smile outwardly

25. While my heart is thought to be in my ribs
When it has flown into the claws of a bird

26. Oh what a wronged, submitted criminal you are
To disappear from his supporters

27. And a deserter whose clothes were seized by force
By the clutch of the rebel

28. If not for vizier Ibn Hamd, I would not
Have sought the company of one who departed

29. I was but of little esteem among the people
Like a faint, waning moon

30. Oh you who possessed my heart
You were ferocious in your tyranny

31. Oh my benefactor in the days of intimacy
Why did your favor become harmful?

32. You singled me out among all people
And I was included in your abundant share

33. How strange for the slow one to seek
The status of the early riser from affection

34. When people appraise you they know
Where is the cloud from the rain?

35. Where is the lowland from the highland?
And where is the corrupt from the pure?

36. You alone in this time presume virtue
From the barren

37. And turn your hearing to the wisps of steps
To the words of the grateful

38. I shake you with poetry - the shaking
Of tree branches on a tumultuous day

39. And I compare your companionship in verse
To scattering upon the head of the eminent

40. And I know if another were yours as I am
I would be like the eyelid and he the eye

41. And I will not, if tempted and then attain
All that I wish, be the victor