1. More beautiful than the grudging gazelles is my beauty,
I took good omens from a name unprosperous in divination,

2. And I adorned myself with idle fancies in love,
A soul adorned with idle fancies is ever unfortunate.

3. I was like a hunter in a waterless waste,
The water there had sunk away and the cattle departed.

4. Shall I complain to you of the heat of passion
When the water of life is on your cheek copiously flowing?

5. Your eye plants temptation in my heart,
And emotion found by the conscience in ardour.

6. There must be some wish that beguiles love
That we may attain our hopes by making excuses.

7. So represent to your eye the thickets and perhaps
Some image of your beloved may visit you among them,

8. And ask the soft breeze for acceptance that so it
May show kindness and favour to one averse.

9. And if you have not gained the success of lovers in love,
You have attained some of the largesse of youth such as they attained.

10. A night whose darkness frightened the gazers,
As though it gloomily resented the terrors of dawn,

11. As though it had a garment on the horizon with skirts
Trailed over the earth beneath.

12. I wondered at a mass of darkness with fireflies flashing-
Flashes of the dawn-breath scattering and streaming down.

13. On either side of me the meadows had spread
Wastes covered over for me with brushwood and late grass.

14. Without the guarded pastures are lives freely squandered
You see in them the ardour of heroes.

15. And in the dark places prowling she-wolves
To whom death is given to drink from the spotted bowl.

16. A warrior challenging the names of the valiant,
To make exploits among them with the bright sword.

17. O remote nearness, where my journeying to you avails naught,
My pressing onwards is to no purpose.

18. O, by the life of her who has about her anklets
By the pool a heart and tinkling ornaments,

19. A girl who heals my sickness at all times
With the health of eyelids that pay it no respect,

20. A pampered one intoxicated with saliva of lips
Sweet to the touch, and on the cheek flowing tresses,

21. I looked at her a look by which she knew
A hint of the ardour of my passion.

22. Then they said, "Her cheek grew red and the inspiration of her eye,"
And I said, "By my life, the rose opens in bashfulness."

23. So they went aside, saying, "A garden that belied their fancies,
O the truth of what they said!"

24. Daughter of the generous man, is there any generosity
To raise up my abased condition with you?

25. You rose light-heartedly to abandon intimacy,
While you are gentleness itself in character.

26. I see the eyes are twins in nature to your eyes,
So that deaths throng about you for their sake.

27. Why then are you averse from us
When in creation we are free from fault in your form?

28. When shall we enjoy the fulfilling of a tryst
When your actions are niggardly and your words lavish?

29. In you are the coquetries of one proud and disdainful
By which the pride even of Amr son of Kulthum might be abased.

30. And one who swears to kiss your mouth believing
That she who contains the covenant is surely fortunate.

31. Were my spirit withdrawn from my veins it would be restored
By a draught from your trailing tresses.

32. I see your halting is fixed for you now on the high ground,
But you have a girdle flowing over your waist.

33. You are like fresh water which gives life, but sometimes
Becomes in the morning a death-draught from the tank.

34. Can treachery and guile be trusted in love
When your glance is deadly and your charm deceitful?

35. Self-admiration has made you a prisoner since you put on
As shoes for others the beauty you wear.

36. Wearing the shade of darkness yet glancing
With tresses which make ornaments in necklaces.

37. Gardens took it upon themselves to provide her with luxury in the valley
Like the leather bag of the perfumer and aromatic roots.

38. The warbler's singing was silenced in it and swayed dancing
At every harmonious note from the birds and bending branches.

39. Are there then no learned ones in the valleys, fair singer,
To whom the twitterings speak plain meaning?

40. Neither did Roseleaf know sorrow in her eyes
Nor Bulbul‚ grief in her song.

41. You reminded me of the springtime of youth now passed,
My ample garments trailing in luxury then.

42. And the life of ease when my aspiration was frozen
By it, while in the flask the wine flowed free.

43. The abode from whose protection we departed
Yet our resolves to it are padlocked.

44. In it I was a child in the wantonness of my teens
Playing with the days of youth which were children.

45. My black locks clothed me in whiteness of side curls
So that their absence now leaves disorder among the curls.

46. After the loves of passion I break the string
And from their desolation comes to me elation and joy.

47. And after roses in my bed and lilies
I repose with the acacia and gum-plants clothing me.

48. I turn aside from every undertaking
Into which the water has conducted the smooth pebble.

49. It has in the fire of the eye a flame which if
Quenched, rekindles the fire of the sun.

50. And a guide who by hint of thin lips
Points to what darkness of desolation lies beyond.

51. When he comes in the wings of night to his love
A swarthy archer ambushes him in the rainbow.

52. Birds fly against him with steel and wood
Light burdens of death in their fluttering feathers.

53. I have a resolve that cannot be daunted
Were the mold also to forge it on blades.

54. And a purpose which failure spends the night remote from
And an opinion which when faced with problems solves them.

55. I make the lightnings of the noble keys
To a care that has on it for penetration locks.

56. I ride when there is no land but all is a seething
Of water, swimming on it effortless.

57. A dove of the valley, unknown to it
Is any song but the cooings told of by Mutanabbi.

58. And I swear by my thought that was concerned with none
Save you, though the place where are the cattle stands far off.

59. By a land whose plants are champions
When the fates rage among the heroes if they meet.

60. Their awe scorches them and their faces
Guide the paths when night quenches the stars,

61. From each tent in the meadow comes the noise of it
If anytime a deed or word of gloryissue.

62. A hero who hunts the horn as though
When the spear invests it, it is a crested serpent,

63. Marked with white and black loins they swelled
Over them from the weaving of ostriches yashmaks,

64. Their battle ardour on the day of strife and their skill
Their horsemen among them lions and cubs.

65. Ah, excellent indeed that abode and its households
And excellent indeed some of its rules and ruins,

66. And excellent indeed the inhaling of a breeze
Morning winds convey to us and evening zephyrs,

67. And excellent indeed the living among them, excellent
Indeed the joints of them in the graves and limbs,

68. And excellent indeed what lies between them of a sleep
Whose terrors awaken me to the Resurrection,