1. She is a gazelle of the valley, with languid eyes,
So beware, yes beware, of her glances!

2. The horsemen have no power against her,
When her gaze attacks their herd’s pasture.

3. She embraced the branches of camel-thorn in her coquetry,
And spent the night in the abodes of perfection in her dreaminess.

4. Had I gained mastery one day over her necklace,
I would have reached her, no I would have clasped her affection!

5. Gardens we grazed in together,
And the fruit of love ripened, bringing bliss to none but her.

6. I feared to grant her wish though she humbly sought it,
For I saw the fire in her paradise.

7. She sang, and impoverished hearts with her beauty,
Since she created imagination from her vitality.

8. Let him who complains of the hardness of her heart complain,
While my complaint is of the softness of her cheeks.

9. My streaming tears have signed
Their flowing down her cheeks as their habit.

10. My eyes did not bow down weary,
But prostrated themselves before the verses she recited.

11. I have no regrets about the pain and intoxication of love,
And I have drunk wine from her taverns.

12. Passion and love’s bewilderment forbade
That I wander crazily in her sands.

13. I hesitated, O she of the cloak, to compose poetry,
From a reed pen colored by my tears.

14. In the morning I was cured of love’s sickness,
Except from what you had stirred up of my ardors.

15. Say to the gazelle, “You are not of her glances,
No, say to the gazelle, “You are not of her blows!”

16. And for the seeker of the sublime, clear her path,
For the virtuous has attained her highest goals,

17. With ease she summons death and fulfillment;
This is for the rebel, the other for her obedient one.

18. Thoughts like seas, their lines
Forever hiding pearls in their darkness.

19. A brown-skinned beauty, with a slender waist,
Swaying coquettishly, fortune and wealth flow from her streams.

20. A stalk bearing the humiliation and pride of the black ones;
For the black ones are proud in their forests.

21. Their faces have prestige in hearts,
So their perfume captivates the minds of transmitters.

22. Their meanings have triumphed over our comprehensions,
Thus their metaphors are guided to their goals.

23. Had you been allowed to look at the page of his thoughts,
You would have seen all people in her mirror.

24. Though not insignificant, her nights’ sin
Seemed slight to me, so lovely were her charms.

25. My supporters turned away, but in her presence
I counted that among her greatest gifts.

26. Its beginnings surpassed its ends,
And her acts of generosity embraced its dried-up twigs.

27. With green from her shade, red from
Her wealth, and white from her eyelids.

28. The full moon of radiance shone upon the sublime
Only when it collected its fragments from her.

29. White hands and pure suspicions are foolish,
While the horses’ necklace adorns their gray color.

30. When the dogs of the tribe present a night visitor,
The camels’ drivers panic at their barking.

31. They sneak to the naked hills laughingly,
The lightning smiles in their mountain passes.

32. The valorous of the past, like the rain in his downpour
Whom war has none of its tremors.

33. They rode the hillocks in the lightning, so it shone
Brighter than full moons in their firmaments.

34. When the winds contend after
The earth’s expanses wore out their carpet of vegetation.

35. They dwelt on the plateaus, kindling their fires
Above meadows fertilized by its decaying plants.

36. They trod the realms so their feet remained
Traces of footprints etched into its hillsides.

37. They squeezed the night’s breast wantonly
So, for their sake, she woke from her slumbering.

38. A people whose shrieking, when their eyes were sleepless,
Made their swords’ blades wakeful with their sharp edges.

39. Like streams in the thickets when they burst forth,
They restored the spate of calamities in its torrents.

40. Their abodes eclipsed the full moons and raised
The suns of daybreak through its ascending steps.

41. They killed the enemy with their wealth, and their dwellings
Killed the owner, gripping his neck.

42. It was as if the tribes had lost their accounts,
You attained the covenant of their oaths and dialects.

43. You relieved the hearts’ gloom, and your favors
Became burdensome upon the backs of the chaste.

44. When the envious gaze upon you haughtily,
Their clouds disperse to their pastures.

45. The rhymes made its feet tremble,
And flung its protectors at you with pebbles.

46. It saw you in an honored position, so either it dies,
And rests, or you give it life from its ashes!

47. You possessed of her other than fearing a rival’s intercession,
What the Beneficent sanctified of her verses.

48. She circulates upon the mouths like wine,
Singing, independent of cupbearers’ palms.

49. Perhaps her words were agreeable to you,
And I fancied, no, shaped as if her cups.

50. So help with strength, and outdo me,
If a prophecy emerged to deflect her harm.

51. I see India’s swords serving her sword,
As her hands wish, by their blades.

52. And generosity rules, and nobility dictates,
That joyous occasions must have their customs.