1. You defended the captives with the seriousness of captivity
To prolong what you only look at prolongingly

2. You are bored and so am I, yet you are erect
So be erect and leave behind your boredom

3. I enjoyed your love - no, rather I suffered
And the judgment of passion is to suffer its enjoyment

4. So do not rejoice at the length of life
As the slightest torture is torturous death

5. He turned away as if he had never existed
And love remained as if it had never departed

6. Your words have gone astray, O reproacher
The whiteness of brightness and the blackness of blinking

7. So do not deny me the beauty of ancestry
I have found the gazelle to be of beautiful descent

8. And do not wonder at my prolonged crying
As pouring tears is not for temporary weeping

9. Restore my patience before separation
For between you all, I had no previous patience

10. Yes, and take from my tears an assurance
For that journey has blocked the paths

11. I wet the ground with the water of my eyelids
And as for my heart, it did not wet

12. And my glances indicated my confusion,
More bewildered than the desert and more lost

13. My eyelids took on
What his traits have retained

14. And his glances legitimize bloodshed
Restrain them from what they legitimize

15. May God water the plain and the two valleys
With nothing but tears and nothing but sorrow

16. Dwellings of desires dressed by time
In the finest adornment and most expensive garb

17. The fire of shame and the water of life
Suit those from Damascus or those who slake thirst

18. And good air and good love
Kill anxiety and revive separation

19. I yearned for it out of love for it
So my body stayed while my heart traveled