1. My two friends, tell me about meeting, oh my two companions
And do not extend my pledge too long or bend it

2. Don't you know that I keep that pledge for kinship's sake
Tending it carefully, tending it carefully?

3. And that I do not deviate though the distance is far
And even if fault-finders throng, I do not accept blame

4. If reproachers chide my heart into deviation
That would be impossible - I reckon right guidance is error!

5. And how could my heart turn away from them
As the slanderers claim - no, no!

6. They are the delight of my eye whenever life is stingy
My tears revive them when it rains

7. By God, their gentle breeze that passes by me
Has a fragrance from their direction, the scent of meadows

8. I can't forget since their gazelles glanced
I've returned forgetful of pacts, forgotten

9. How many charms in the languor of their eyes!
How many straight-flying arrows whenever they shoot!

10. They create beauty when they show the grace of their character
Enslaving lovers' hearts captivated by them

11. By the temptation of their soft curving forms
I gave my heart without condition or bend

12. I praise my fate for a stand where the zephyr wanders
Watering its days, watering them equally

13. It flows gladly between us then draws back
With the coolness of rain that excellently flows and twists

14. But I am the thirsty one when shadows shrink
We quenched our thirst on the border, drinking the water of clouds

15. Patience fortified itself in me, refusing,
Then the gazelles attacked it when they saw the little gazelle

16. My tears disclosed my misery the day I showed my youth
I wept openly for a secret that did not cease being hidden

17. I disclosed the secrecy of love after they were distant
And who shoots for goals - no doubt he will tire

18. I revival my night when their breeze revived it
While sleep grew dear in that

19. So who can aid a sick man who did not cease being sick
With a breeze from their sanctuary, if ever

20. I stood at their singing, while my tears poured
Like snakes watering the living with that water

21. I decked it out with poetry, slender and delicate
And with my tears, prose - and excellently decked!

22. For who can help me, while the ember of passion is in my entrails
And the water of affliction has flooded between my two eyelids

23. When my night came on, my heart twisted, bent me,
I tossed a pounding heart between two sides

24. For my tossed heart is with sorrow -
It will live through what its thought grants survival

25. A beloved greeted me with missives, a branch
I enjoyed the shade of company in its garden, joyous!

26. Until he let no desolation remain for me
Until he left no thirsty liver for me

27. Among what redoubled my fervor - the beauty of a maiden
Who came walking proudly with modesty

28. From the light of her mirror dawns broke for whoever saw
And from her occurrence, Sana'a, if she graced an occurrence

29. The beauty of the shy one at dawn revived my heart
So my heart was shy, and my dawn was shy!

30. I favored the face of the maiden describing her -
Every tired weak one falls short of comprehending her

31. Where are the stars of the horizon next to that brilliance
When sights are dazzled by its highest course!

32. Would that this heart be balmed with vinegar essence
That attained glory or became withered

33. And the love of its magnificent father, the flag of contentment -
Who pursues religion and world relies on it

34. Whoever wants him for knowledge, meets its leader
Clarifying for him every complex issue, guiding!

35. And whoever makes it his abode finds it blameworthy
Wherein the healthy return sweetened water

36. But if he recites a verse of remembrance -
Before you lies what you seek of the goal, nearing

37. By God, the excellence of the words, if he defines a sermon!
By God, the sea of retention, if he interprets revelation!

38. You see him, with good fortune, the sun of guidance
And the sun of brilliance for the seeking - most wondrous of things!

39. Oh my brother! who can thank me for a gift
You sent - you kept thanking perpetually?

40. It was my duty before it to boast of finery
Like its hospitality that hosts with insignia and furniture

41. It is the trait of one who nurtures the finest people
And the attribute of one adorned, pleased and pleasing

42. Your hand wrote wisdom in deadly perils
And judgment - so I became commanded and forbidden

43. I stand before it praising it
For the length of days, never found double-faced in thanks

44. I make my pride a dwelling oriented
If I want something of my wishes fulfilled

45. And I court horses for literary refinement
Excelling Yemeni and Bedouin horses

46. My soul rests from me as if I flew
To its singing with my wings spread fully

47. Yearning for the one who gifted me all wishes
So that no wish remained for me but seeing him!