1. How strange that I leaned to denunciation
Though you were no slanderer fabricating lies

2. When intent heard an ear inclining to it
It turned speech aside into deceit and forgery

3. You are but one who hides with his fingers
The face of morning now lit and unveiled

4. You revealed the face of betrayal not hiding it
And friendship, how brief, if it betrays

5. Guile appears underneath advice, the gallant shows it
A fault magnified, how hard that it be pardoned

6. You taught the ways of grace not reached
Delaying, keeping faith with one who deserts

7. With my love angry, I seek its pardon
My greatest sin, that it sleep while I keep vigil

8. I appealed to it in my love, and asked it
Forbearance, but it was curt in reproach

9. The breeze of his abode did blow towards me
At dawn, and all but tripped me with my tears

10. Where my tears flow wasted like blame
In it, and my patience flees like a dream

11. I commend to the Compassionate a branch blowing
And advancing in waist and glance languorous

12. And swords that sold affection permitted
By me, though my right to affection you'd buy

13. If only I had strength, I'd leave the slanderer
Scattered remnants by my arrows in pieces

14. I'd visit, unimpeded, the encampment, rouse
That coward, that craven whelp

15. And I'd visit the white tents of tribes, set out
Either by fires of war or the homes' ember

16. O doll of the sacred encampment, its earth
As though they tread on wafting ambergris

17. I fancied your fire in the folds of darkness
Unlike your people's embers in ashes and dust

18. The living think you lit it only from the sparks
Of darkness, not pure clear flame

19. My eyes and glances care nothing for them
Their slaying glance gains only by rending

20. When the ruins were wrapped in its breeze
Bearing from the perfume's mystery an excuse

21. Down came the gusts, stumbling, nor
Did the perfume sellers' wares escape unharmed

22. It cloaked our night in the air of Sawaqa
And lightning clothed each horizon red

23. And dawn sought in darkness, like a new moon
A breast in which to conceal some secret thing

24. Withdraw the train of your gown, vile is enmity
Rise if the Friend calls you joyfully to buy

25. What fault in one who came begging a need
When he drove a roan or blond steed?

26. Set up the abodes of reverence, trying
The Magnate's door when the guide was lost

27. A king whose might made the sea brackish
There its sweetness turned briny

28. If his remembrance stirred the heart of night
Its pinions would block the heavens' lights

29. I broke with all but him, though he never
Broke with me, nor the dust of any flesh

30. He singled him out, for his superiority
Known to me, from between celestial and dust

31. I never sensed him, after the Prince and Joseph
Entreating, without the best and most fragrant increase

32. He left the settlement, though it seethed with compassion
And turned the age's rocky slopes verdant

33. How often, from his broad plain, I brought down
The son of clemency, ardor, and most hallowed sanctity

34. The lion - how his hands tore the foe asunder
The rain - how his hands brought down copious bestowal

35. For my repose, warring, or making peace
Might that kills and bounty scattering, sowing

36. Two contraries in one condition together
One who warns the tyrant, the other bearing good tidings

37. Most generous on earth, of most noble traits
Greatest benefaction, of most noble company

38. His palm puts the serpents to shame
Until it seems the vipers are headless

39. Like the sea, safe from harm or difficulty
Save that no creature remains destitute

40. He disdains the lightning's lies, and only sees
In the eras' darkness, a cloudburst coming down

41. I wasted and grew poor, place after place
By nature, while he enriched, like time, and impoverished

42. A moon - when its lance stars rose
Bewildered, he lifted the heavens' hems

43. Ask him when the flux of favor draws him near
Beware him when he turns away, grows cold

44. God is greatest when in anger he transfers
The lances vanished, replaced by the age's lion

45. Son of kings, when he dashes into the fray
The lands fill with clamor and leopard

46. They ruled the earth, and walked on fortune's cheek
And harnessed its days and eras

47. A people - when they rode steeds for some event
You saw the face of that day darkened and dusty

48. They threaded the swords' dawn light as though
They rode souls, not steeds with severed tails

49. O garden, I entered the fire of his reproach
So I wandered the night of sorrows an outcast

50. I passed a clear, pure test
Whose pillar I never shook but it flowered and bore fruit

51. Why does your face not shine radiant
After outshining the horizon, illuminating?

52. My pact with him almost draws, from his cheeks
The water of shame, glinting, dripping

53. I never carried tales but of those who deserved them
So marvel how stout and patient my heart remained!

54. Show anger that your kindness lie dormant
Your affection's serenity remain troubled

55. Enough for the bashful to blame you in the dew
Who can restrain the sea from swelling fulsome?

56. They magnify a thousand - paltry
To one whose bounty grants cities and settlements

57. Awakening, his hand promises me the like
Bounteously - his pledge will never be broken

58. O you whom God sanctified with celestial musk
Musk betrays not its scent to ever change

59. You graced me with gold, filled my hands with it
When I strewed these pearls upon you

60. Grant us generous gifts unbroken, disdaining
Any count that would limit overflowing praise

61. You are far above reclaiming gifts
Hidden, though it is their habit to appear

62. It was a bargain whose separation came after
Nobles disdain to haggle and select

63. Indeed I gifted you, from my musings' daughters
A song - your reward for it, no less than a dower

64. Red pearls, white gems, black, possessed
Of glances - the beauty wore, embellishing you

65. Of every charming conversationalist, ingenious of
Meaning - who knew Babylonish sorcery -

66. It appeared, so you were rapt before it was recited
And strings - though the cupbearers knew no wine -

67. A mistress, beautiful as your face in its view
A beloved, choice as your origin in its reports

68. So admire it, and make it permitted, so strange
A notion he nurtured, designing and depicting

69. And permit your hearing, after it, to repeat
That imagined discourse and fabricated tale