1. My ears are deaf to every whisper,
Were it not for tears, no tear would flow from my eyelids,

2. The gardens of beauty are for a lover to enter,
Tormented by a glance, restrained and refined.

3. Her happiness is the possessor of my heart,
And my heart is hell from her disdain.

4. O my friend, where is a friend to me?
Do you know how I can strengthen resolve?

5. A place of joy has become a place of calamity,
Where my tears and blood meet.

6. As if Labid lived grieving,
And stood crying for Malik utterly absorbed.

7. In my Bedouin attire I am forgotten before him,
Vows are forgotten and reputations dismissed.

8. Imprisoned for a sin from his bow,
And by shyness his face covered.

9. He brings us despair and revives hope,
From his glances - wellness and illness.

10. From roses and moist laban and red
Ruby - his cheek, stature and mouth.

11. He denies us, and he is the spring whose cheek
We crave, so he is forbidden to our embrace.

12. An imaginary dawn from him is reddish-gray,
The night has for him a black steed.

13. So he spent the night like a dinar in my palms
And the full moon spent the night like a dirham in the palm of the sky.

14. He tantalizes me with his cup, so if one saw
The full moon taking stars from his hands.

15. My companion and all my praise are his
Victorious in religion, generous, refined.

16. The victorious king, ocean of his palm,
Fear anchors on him and blessings float.

17. His determination in every matter is an ember
Resembling the water of dew and generosity.

18. More wondrous than him and his flood -
Through it, when havoc is feared, safety is found.

19. He is salvation, and his brother salt is not
Spared from its dangers by the submissive.

20. He gives away pearls, and were it not for his description,
Minds would not understand how to compose poetry.

21. I attained the cause of my connection through his glorious deeds
Which time obeys however he determines.

22. He stood up and circumstances were overturned,
Grant me success, for hardships make me sleepy.

23. How many times did he advance in dilemmas and birds
Of the air crowded to villages?

24. You would doubt whether those birds are his horses
Or those horses are soaring birds.

25. The waters rhymed and they are elite, and the curves returned
Yearning, and they are blood and water.

26. So the rugged is smooth, mountains are but a hop
The difficult is easy and the far is near.

27. The least of sins for him when his steed gallops,
And the faded is renewed and empowered.

28. Bestowing like water - the loom of his deeds
Weaves - the palm of morning grants delight and unites.

29. It penetrates a heart though iron falls short,
And a glance, though the night at its darkest.

30. Like the night in color, crescent shaped,
Majestic and studded with stars.

31. O you who grant goodness, o you who aid horses and
Whiten plains in the darkness that gleams!

32. I longed, and my absence from you is enough -
In my soul it assists and inveighs against me.

33. A group preceded me - had I obeyed
Passion for you they would not have advanced.

34. They finesse speech when I am absent - though if
I attended them one day of speech, they would be silent.

35. They said - and not all speech penetrates -
True, nor are all swords sharpened.

36. If I spoke they were silent, if my shadow appeared
They were frightened, and if I shone they darkened.

37. And if I recalled while they were among
An arbiter who knows.

38. It is said of me he spoke undisputedly
And of them they mentioned and claimed.

39. So my share is submission to what I have said
And their share from speech is accusation.

40. So sheath the tales of verse, O children
Of claims - for not every sheath holds Zamzam.

41. We are the falcons wherever there is prey while you
Are prey - we are falcons and you are carrion.

42. Do not covet heights beyond your reach
Other than piety and the Bedouin life, O dregs!

43. If you grow angry at my words then usurp them -
The ferocious were led by the summit.

44. I have attained what minds recoil from,
And I got what ambitions fall short of.

45. As if Zuhair stood declaiming
In a ruin no ruin ever attained.

46. Yours are the deeds and potent speech while mine
Is the sword and mine is the pen.

47. So if you did then forbearance and dew,
And if I spoke then prohibition and judgment.