1. Let tears flow in homes and weep,
While hearts rejoice at the memory of loved ones.

2. I had not known that the gazelles of Naqa
Matched the blackness of my eyes the day we passed by Rāmah.

3. When they passed us by, they snatched our hearts away,
While their hearts remained unmoving.

4. After passion has gone, the abode
Becomes a refuge for yearning and lingering sorrow.

5. They paid us a false visit in our time of woe,
While the night wrapped its endless darkness about us.

6. The Pleiades have set after their rising,
And the group of stars lie scattered between them.

7. While you came at night and our night was starless,
Would that you had come at dawn when day breaks clear!

8. While sorrow, dark and gloomy, binds us together,
Till sunrise, bright and radiant, divides us.

9. My friend, reflect on fate,
Consider well what fate has brought.

10. Each day some trouble befalls me, estranging me,
While homes in delight depart from me.

11. Cares, each time I drive them from my breast,
Remain, lifelong, and do not budge at all.

12. I cannot complain of them, fearing exposure,
Cares are not to be told to a stricken heart.

13. When I sought true brotherhood, none remained for me
Save the questioner, weak of purpose.

14. One notorious for his faults yet feels
Eyes should not see the faults in him.

15. A neighbor with whom I was never satisfied
To have as neighbor, nor counselor true.

16. Comrades who have cast virtue away,
And have no arena left but wickedness.

17. And worse, I have made intimate
Those I should hate by night and day.

18. In unremitting and oppressive anguish
That knows no end, perpetual gloom.

19. My embers passed from hand to hand, finding
No one to quench them, while others' embers flare.

20. When I resolved to be saved, no means remained
To save me, save disgrace and vileness.

21. Say to him who prances vainly in battle,
A gaze the lances have made their target.

22. Convey, you have conveyed, to our pillar and chief,
Who has honored life for us, no guile in him.

23. Without you, in darkness I remain,
When evening comes to me with no dawn.

24. If life has savor, it is longing for you,
As you know, that gives it savor and delight.

25. You knew when you unwillingly drew near
That distance from you profits me naught.

26. I who was exiled after you departed
Am barred from all my soul desires.

27. In hands opened to do harm,
Yet closed when kindness is asked.

28. One who belittles adversity for me,
You are farthest from it, I know.

29. If the arrows of fate assail you,
Let the arrows strike another's skin.

30. No harm to us if our hearts entwine,
No rival comes between us or divides.

31. The further ones are present in affection,
While the nearer ones are outcast without love.

32. You have exposed a people who never attained
The excellence you attained that faults expose.

33. You left us grasping after right that was
In your hands, groping blindly for the morn.

34. When the clan of ʿAbd al-Raḥīm took the lead,
I could not leave them.

35. Swift to defend their honor when defamed,
They are mountains firm if war grows fierce.

36. I cannot bear to leave them, though I might
Leave one whose loss would not distress me.

37. I who am generous, if asked to turn
From your company, I am one who hoards and hides.

38. A folk who shore me up against evil, bent
On evil, while distress flowed free.

39. If they deny vile deeds, stand apart,
If they hasten to noble action, breathe free.

40. When you summon them against outrage,
Highbred steeds come to you with hooves bloodied.

41. A people once my haven, though floods
Of ills shook them, and me in them.

42. The egg-white gleams on the heights of Al-Kumah,
The sparrowhawk sprinkled from pools of Tarā'ib.

43. Absent from me, my tears will flow for you
Until they see you, endlessly pour.

44. Greetings that never end, salutations
Whose goal is far while my heart stays fixed.

45. I pardon time's offenses, but cannot
Pardon that by our parting I was offended.