1. If your specter were to return, though frail,
It would give joy to one in misery, and solace to one in distress.

2. But when you departed from the abode,
Those burdens between us became unbearable.

3. My tears flowed not but because they
Became, after all were gone, landmarks and hills.

4. Do you remember those days of our intimacy?
Did I reminisce or was I overwhelmed with grief?

5. Do not blame love, the chaste one, for mocking
Me, and weep for the blamer and complainer.

6. My eyelids have been shortened by wakefulness,
My wounds long, and my nights boundless with sadness.

7. The naive heart did not know that I
Have become burdened with cares for it.

8. Solace, and there is no solace for the heedless,
His tears froze and his misery melted away.

9. And strangely, the fertility of his tears
In the cheek produced barrenness in the ribs.

10. I wish to weep for you, and if I found a way for anguish,
Like Motamm’s saying: “If I found a way.”

11. I would kiss a cheek at dawn blossoming,
And wink at the darkness like kohl.

12. The swords of lightning died as they were unsheathed,
So they wounded an eyelid, sparingly.

13. I wonder that your love has made for me
The flashes of lightening sharp blades and spears.

14. So restrain your eyelids as the people turn away
For a few moments from the gaze of your eyes.

15. For you have unleashed a crooked arrow,
A polished spear, and a sharpened sword.

16. You left, and my love became like your camel-litter, overflowing,
And you left my patience feeble with fasting.

17. And you asked me how was my night, and without you
A palm cannot accomplish what it intends.

18. And your sweet kissing had for its conclusion
A sealing – who can erase the seal of his kissing?

19. So ask the morning breeze about the days of my youth,
If I have changed since those days.

20. Were it not for the betrayals of Time and its people,
I would not have taken the breeze as messenger.

21. Time is like kin – it deceives its own.
And Time is more treacherous in pledge and tribe.

22. Do not raise the banner of knowledge with an ignorant one,
For the loftiness of your fortune is that you seem ignorant.

23. Turn away from the base world, even if it rises
Towards the noble, and even if it attains decline.

24. The sword – the taxes make it lofty,
Whether you leave it with its blade bent or straight.

25. And pearls settle in still waters, though the
Foam of seas has passed and is no longer abundant.

26. Why are people, who share one origin,
So different in nature and forms?

27. You find the cowardly born of the valiant, and sometimes
The generous begets the tight-fisted.

28. Attributes point to the souls, and under them
Are lots that arise from destiny.

29. Why would I seek the rich, even if they
Call me with riches? Then I would lose my way.

30. A people, when the rhymes ring out,
They gather them in an assembly, taking it for neighing.

31. With greed, I do not cease being distraught,
Striking the face of certainty with separation and confusion.

32. Until when will I depart, departing,
A shadow covering both worlds, dark?

33. No speech of speeches is honored unless
The Almighty King returns it with his submission.