1. O time of fever, peace be upon you,
You have distressed me through your days,

2. And slanderers have surrounded him, if only
An imagination could master this,

3. So life made you drink, and were it not for Ziyad's legislation
We would say intoxication made you drink,

4. And dreams have turned you away from me,
Alas! And who am I that dreams speak truth?

5. An aim of resolve that constricts the chest
And without which bodies languish,

6. So months are like an epoch in length
And days of separation like years,

7. O guardians of debts, have I a path to truth
While you are the rulers?

8. You have slept from my vigil, and none knows
What hurts a wakeful sleeper when one sleeps,

9. You have not kept the rights of a neighbor, though
Even the humblest neighbor is kept by the protector,

10. Do you hope for the zephyr when its breezes
Bring nothing from you but sorrow and passion?

11. By my soul those signals are not
Sweeter discourse for one who understands,

12. And a place I wedded to God,
Where happiness thrives,

13. In showers from clouds when
The lote-tree danced as the doves sang,

14. And my friend and the night like the black
Tent, the full moons of his cheeks complete,

15. Ashamed before him the sun, the oryx, and Venus,
A face, an eyelash, and a slender form,

16. Goodly were those bright tents,
For them the moons are those tents,

17. We were cured by their beauty, the Pleiades descend
And hearts are healed of injuries,

18. Charmers with kohl-lined eyes, magic in them,
Through them we have health and sickness,

19. Long has been my blame upon them, though
Patience lessens not but as blame grows,

20. Wakeful of glance, should time sleep from them
Yet time's alternation does not sleep,

21. Nothing is the union of the beloved but life
And parting from the vizier but worry,