1. I blamed the censurers,
And verified their doubts with certainty,

2. And said: the Lord of worshippers will forgive
Sins counted against the sinful.

3. So I crowned the garden of beautiful youth
With a peer garden and flowing springs,

4. And winds—you see their fire in the atmosphere—
Casting from the water the images of maidens.

5. Nights frolicking in their darkness,
As the meteors dash with the waves,

6. And a night I made resplendent, as kohl
Bedecks with the darkness’s kohl the eyes of the onlookers.

7. When its sea raged, I rode little ships
To its sea’s shore therein ships.

8. And you reckon the darkness of its depths
Begets for us from light a baby.

9. As if its thickets’ stars
Were meadows’ virgins on the horizon, rapt.

10. As if it had a lion coming out for your eyes,
His forehead bared from a cave,

11. And a redness which spreads the scent of wine,
And in its folds—joy for the woeful!

12. Manumitted, the earth split from it,
And the liveliness of bliss revived in it its entombed.

13. It grew together with the sun in its lifetime
Transported in the breasts of years.

14. I raced through it by night intoxicated,
As I bowed praying to it with my forehead.

15. There undoubtedly I gained
My spoils—a houri from the herd of virgins.

16. I breathed in the neck of a camphor-tree
Which exudes perfume at all times.

17. And kissed a cheek—you see its rose
A peer cleaving open the jasmine.

18. And when at the darkness’s turtledoves’ call
The turtledoves bemoaned it with soft mourning,

19. I was perplexed and dawn, too, bewildered,
Till I reckoned my left hand my right hand,

20. And sorrow delved in my tear-sea—
So I shed the dear pearls' treasures;

21. While the night wondered greatly at a lover
Who wept at the smile of a clear dawn!