1. Yes, the mornings of youth fleet away,
And the steeds of passion race heedless on.

2. My days I have shortened by being all-embracing,
And in the garden I have grown old ere my prime.

3. Shortest of all are the days of the youth,
That day of delight wherein he finds life sweet.

4. Nights that cannot be pierced even when you hit
The mark, for youth is the butt for Time's arrows.

5. A band whose business was idle sport
Have abandoned care, and know but joy.

6. They toss the wine-skin, as though its leather
Were clothed in the steel of coats of mail.

7. It recoils from the shock of the hand, as the colt
Scatters the pearls from his grinding teeth.

8. So love that life I described, and the days
Of that age, and the comrades of that time.

9. And a night the water-lilies cover with gloom,
As the faces of drowned men veil the eddies.

10. I stole by the loved one's abode, responding
Whene'er she called to me with no rein on my will,

11. As though I were one of the Jinn, repeating "In Allah's name"
Over a fold wherein my flock had strayed and was lost.

12. You would think the dawn's smile shone from his cheek,
And that his side was clad in the night's murk.

13. The ostrich struts on his head, which seems to you
Housed in a turban, if the galloping fails to bow it down.

14. His ear as though the pen were delineating it,
You would think you saw a document traced thereon.

15. Pure pearl in his bracelets instead of agate;
His heels leave prints upon the rock as he walks.

16. He is Beauty: mount him, you will win everything that seemed
Unattainable to you and eluded your prayers.

17. Till you come to a moon to which you will go up
As though heaven's vault has lowered its ceiling.

18. As though I were a secret within the night's skirt,
Entering upon the core of my heart veiled in its cover.

19. So I slept, laved with the cold spray of care,
At the thought of which the jealous heart melted.

20. As though the kisses snatched from the edge of his cheek
Were bought by the rain-clouds with thunder and lightnings.

21. Never have I seen in the world a comrade of anyone luckier than I
Nor one smitten like me in his prime.

22. I have lost my youth so my turban's darkness turned white,
As though youth for old age were a dye.