1. The longing was known to you, my loves
Now there is no connection, no excuse

2. A long night, as passion desired, O Layla
While you are in an impenetrable abode

3. After the day we parted nothing of me remains
Except tears pouring for the separation

4. If the passion for you that sprouted in me
Had solidified, transformations would have sprouted

5. And you got bored of one who does not get bored of your love
Without any crime, and the bored is indeed bored

6. They said: “To forget is the cure for your malady”
They spoke true, but to it there is no way

7. We left, while yearning resided our hearts
We turn to our banners so we may lean

8. So it was as if ghoul pestered us
Or the bones were corroded by termites

9. How many ardent lovers below the tents of beauty
Perish in wilderness or spilled blood

10. While its maidens’ breasts are lofty peaks
If tears were of use, I would have cried

11. You bid me in vain to rid my passion
How could I, when my heart is fettered to it?

12. O Bakri’s daughter, you have an authority over our hearts
That is obeyed and a frequented abode

13. And you have conquered skulls amongst us with your beauty
If you were fair, they would indeed be slaves

14. You did not carry the weight of passion and so belittled it
While the light loads of love are indeed heavy

15. Whenever we see your effulgence that is the gloss
Or the polished essence, the literati are stunned

16. The rules of grammar went haywire madly
And we are disappointed by him we see as apathetic

17. You knocked unto me weakly with meters of love poetry
While its knocking unto the spears is stimulation

18. On a night, a refusal visited
As the distant drew near and the stingy gave

19. If only our visitor at Dajja’s darkness
Did not come but the dawn was its courier

20. So, its little clearly dawned while its plenty
Muddled the darkness that was little

21. Blame and happiness with it do not diminish it
For all that delighted the hearts will fade

22. Many are the peoples but ours
From Hashim is an exalted clan

23. The horizon in it has with the suns planets
And the absence in it has with the lions cubs

24. Its fresh humid side was not covered from
Its bounty neither prevented nor stretched

25. And if men prided and preferred
Below the earth the preference anchored them

26. With every bright forehead that is as if it were
An anger stripped bare by the polishers

27. And one blamed regarding favors for long
The resentful was excused by it and the generous was stingy

28. And it was as if whenever mayhem was witnessed
He was battalion, stabbing and fighting

29. And cohorts if not for them between us
There would not have been reverence or veneration

30. From them morals were rebuked and by them
Guidance was perceived and interpretation learned

31. And their houses are the abode of integrity between them
The book was transcribed and revelation descended

32. And you see them morning and every night
Either Mikael or Gabriel descends upon them

33. If they did not take to the paths of righteousness
Neither taboos nor permissions would have been distinct

34. So they are solid from base matters and they
To matters lofty are statutes

35. A house its pillars and domes established
Either by an imam or his brother the messenger

36. A house whose pure are spoken to by God
Upon them the angels constantly descend

37. And dwellings from which never dissipated from their mouths
Glorifications nor testimonies of faith

38. Theirs are Mina, the Station of Abraham, and Zamzam
And the House, and the circumambulating and ferrying

39. And the Black Stone, and the stone which, due to its traits
Always, the touching and the kissing were delightful

40. To God belongs what they defended from their religions
And the charging warriors from criticisms to recoil

41. They cast off temperance and down with their caution
And became certain the coward is but miserable

42. And rode like flood water in abundance
None therein save spearheads and assaults

43. And the steeds radiant, as if their gear
For its glow the morning’s light is guide

44. A night whose sky’s is the green of the spear
And the sword in it an unsheathed gleam

45. And with a bold heart plunging the darkness while he has
None but a sword in his hand as guide

46. Profiting life with his stabbing and striking
While the fleeing outcasts are the dead

47. Take them! For at their sunrise never whitening
As the dawn’s emerging glow to descend

48. As if a wish attained with it and as if it were
The desired meadow of soil

49. Travelers despite any hardship
And for the strange of speech a pathfinder

50. And if compared to it any other it brings out
Flaws while it shines flawless

51. Poetry from it is dazzling selective excellence
And from it the lackluster worthless

52. And of prosody there is fortuity and misery
And of prosody, splendor and gloom

53. Its little is soundness itself but much of it
From its authors are urges and foolishness

54. The composers of poetry either sincere
Entering its doors or misguided barred

55. And how to the descenders of the slopes towards it
Are the diverged from its path and few

56. They sought but never attained and how many a seeker
Of something but to it there is no attainment

57. But if they do not master in their poetry
How could I master saying their poetry