1. I reproached your specter in the night of the sand
While the caravan took rest from the toil

2. They were attentive to your estrangement when you were miserly with the morning
And they became blind to seeing at the time of generosity

3. We have become destitute, and how can an impoverished young man
Become wealthy while in the grip of jest?

4. I present to her who was created as she desired
Beauty, though she did not accept it from me

5. How often she did wrong intentionally
Making herself available to love

6. And indeed, those who do not deceive me know
That I am lovesick for the beautiful eyes

7. Those who traveled pre-dawn
Killed me by doing so though they did not intend to kill me

8. When they left, they took nothing with them
Except my heart, steadfast in passion for them

9. And when I see the beauty of a singer
It is the one she stole from my perfection

10. A white woman who shames the dawn with her brilliance
And the darkness with the incense of her thick hair

11. She pretended not to see me when she saw me
Ablaze in the separation between us, burning

12. And she softened me for a time with love songs until
Youth was inscribed for me with isolation

13. How often I wore it, and that youth was with me,
With a bracelet and an anklet of a child

14. But now, no gait of mine walks with a singer
Nor do my messages lead her

15. I am restrained from her by old age, just as
The difficult colt is restrained by the hobble

16. Do not obligate me today, wrongfully,
To what is not of my binding or loosing

17. Grayness, which I have been blemished with,
Is from the doing of your Lord, not mine

18. I did not bring it down upon myself,
But He who brought it to my encampment

19. Who can inform Him for me, so I may thank
The King of Honor, the Assembler of Virtue

20. And the Doer of deeds - never before
Known between people - and the Utterer of Judgment

21. You who set me straight, ennobled
Between branch and origin

22. May God reward you among the excited ones, while
The pigeons upon it stood on one leg

23. And the judgment is for the longnecked brown ones among the people
Or for the white-speckled ones

24. And war makes grim every wide-chested one
With its leather coats and iron coats of mail

25. And there, the evil of war is a burden
Like a sausage at times, and like mange at times

26. And the stab bursts open every leather coat
Like an open door for eating

27. In a slippery stand, it grays the one who sees it,
Were she one who parts from a child

28. Filled with lions, attacking,
Branches among horses and men

29. You were the most honorable among them, though
The people bowed their heads before you in humiliation

30. And with it you gave the mothers of warriors to drink
Affliction - a draught of bereavement

31. As if you do not fear violence
Or dislike the bitterness of death

32. How often you gave relief while you belittled
Any constriction - you do not accept tightness

33. And you breathed from generosity a spirit for us that passed
And you killed some from their resting places

34. And you showed us that marked ones
Were more stingy in their outpourings

35. In my heart, while you were complaining,
Were straight shots like arrows

36. And it was as if, when I heard of it,
I was confused, full of stupidity

37. And if only I could afford redemption
I would redeem it with my soul and family

38. And I carried a burden no person carried
For so long - you are my strong right hand

39. You - if I fear harm, you are my champions,
And if I am struck, you are my blades

40. And if I thirst, from your pools is my drinking,
And from your rain barrels my irrigation

41. And indeed, I am done with all matters together -
Your praise and your panegyrizing are my occupation

42. And you are from a people - when they promise
They surpass in violating and procrastinating

43. They pushed the stars from their positions
And walked upon the eagles with sandals

44. And rugged terrain was like the exposed hillsides when
They crossed a distance, and sadness like the plains

45. O master, there is no equal to match you -
There is no other like me in loyalty to you

46. Nothing of me was in the hands of mortals -
Now take me from me - all my love

47. And listen to a poem whose rhymes I speak
Which he dictates to me about you what he dictates

48. I made it precious for an age, and since
My peace depended on you, I made cheap what I made precious