1. How many eyes has the wine made languid,
And how many revellers has it made loose-tongued!

2. And I, one morn when the pitcher was passed round,
Bore off the dregs of the wine-skins however heavy.

3. I was content with a little from them, nor was I
Pleased, before parting, with a little from them.

4. Had it not been for my tears the day they departed
The garden of sorrow would not have flowed.

5. And she showed a face the sun of morning
Had never shone on save with a sparkling radiance.

6. She donned the black garments of its branches
And smiled through lips sweetened with wine;

7. She glanced at you with the corner of a fawn-like eye
And traced with down on the skirt of her shift.

8. If you deny what the hand of fate has done
My witnesses are my wasting frame and my tears.

9. What matters the niggardliness of their hands to me
If they are not niggardly in upbraiding me?

10. How long shall I complain against the cruelty of one deaf
And how long hope for bounty from a miser?

11. Tell the assailants, now that the Pleiades decline,
My inclining is toward the driver of the wine-skins.

12. Make your way to the King of kings, your halting places,
For the halting of the caravan is best at his abode,

13. Where the soil has kissed foreheads and its expanse
Is spacious for a people given to kissing.

14. Like the moon of the gloaming his face
And its brightness is that of a polished blade.

15. God reward you for standing at a station you have not ceased
To be a foal circling round the other foals.

16. While the horses charge down from the hilltops
And the camels leave behind them all the little hills,

17. As though they were swimming the eddies of Nu'm
Smooth rocks swimming in eddies of mist,

18. They tried you when discord raised its head
And reason in men was struck as by epilepsy,

19. As though it were a spark in the blackness of night
Whose reaping comes not with host or company,

20. As though it were a wild thing in the darkness of night
Blundering blindly and without guide.

21. But you made it swing straight with your wisdom
Until it turned its back on us without scent or track,

22. And you mounted it when the dawn flushed red
At an hour when mounts the base-born wretch.

23. Had it been truly rebellious against you
You had tamed it with the halter firmly bound.

24. And filled the breadth of the wide earth with swordblades and spears
And horses and warriors;

25. As though the battalion in desire for booty
Craved only for blood-wit of the wounded;

26. Bare of all but the raiment of valour,
Athirst save with the blood of the slain to drink.

27. And I who love your love and ever seek
Always your pleasure, and that is my hope,

28. Whenever a people change from side to side,
Then you are secure from my changing.

29. And if you come to regard me justly
My heart swears it cares not for blamer or dispraise

30. Leave me to criticize those who criticize;
The noontide sun sheds no light for the dim of sight.

31. Let me make up for the good fortune others enjoy
If I do not take in it the rank of the abject.

32. Her cheek dimpled like the dawn smiling on an actor
Weary with long quest of every spectator.

33. As though for those who see her she were a flame
And for those who kiss she were all-embracing.

34. As though she were a mighty thing unpursued,
A trembling doe, but lioness when she has whelped.

35. As though she were the garden of Eden sacked
By left hands of sorceresses acceptable.

36. Her figure repudiates the known meaning of figure;
Her speech was not as the speech of yore.

37. And when the bloom in the branches turns color
Her bloom is changeless and knows no fading.

38. Rejoice in this feast and linger on
In mansion of delight thronged with blessings.

39. You kept the fast from yourself but were not perturbed
By anything of error or slip.

40. You held aloof from all forbidden things;
They only fasted from food and drink.

41. And if you live we care not if there comes to us
Misfortune, the tears of misery are our consolation.