1. A visitor whom I did not welcome,
Visited only at the age of senility,

2. Became coy with me during a frosty night,
So we did not lack his coquetry,

3. Possessing charm, though we
Only love his charm,

4. He shunned me while living next to me
Letting my words reach his ears,

5. Until when the berries ripened,
He sharpened his fangs at me,

6. He only came at nightfall
Without feeling safe in the morning,

7. And visited me in my homeland
Abandoning his own homeland

8. Then he left hastily
When he plucked his whiskers,

9. His estrangement compensated me
With a guarded visit,

10. Futile but
Of a wrongdoer - goodly,

11. How goodly is triumph over
An opponent - how goodly!

12. Would that it be a visit
That becomes his habit,

13. The slanderer did not arouse
What we suspect of it,

14. Nor did the prudent one
Cast at it his prudence,

15. I spend my night hugging
His branch,

16. And cleave to the cheek
Which his scorpion had stung and his viper had bit,

17. Were it not for the darkness interceding for me
I would not have attained his benevolence,

18. He was generous with it, buying it cheap
And I did not pay its price,

19. In an hour that was as if
A thousand years in pleasures,

20. Wherein he connected residence
After separation had weaned it;

21. Time did not deal me justice,
In frightening me and securing him,

22. I surrender my rein to him
Then hold back his rein,

23. How naive is love for whoever
Bears what naive him!

24. A tester who hates that
He separate from you his test,

25. And a swimmer in a creek
Who does not wipe his wet clothes,

26. Then a passionate one whose care
Is kissing whom he had blamed,

27. Or an era which dies because of
Calamities that distressed its eras;

28. I said to him, poor unto
His bounty and dwelling,

29. "O owner of a love
I concealed yet declared,

30. And when an absence hides
The full moon's perfection?"

31. He said to me - how vile I found it:
"Is there any return to its like?"