1. O Sa'd, love has wasted my bones
And chased the sweetness of sleep from my eyes

2. O Sa'd, how can I wake up while intoxicated
By the wine of your glance, ceaselessly drunk

3. How can I survive when I am struck
By poisoned arrows, my soul a sacrifice to the archer

4. Had you witnessed what I saw, you'd have excused me
And found my passion, and envied my love

5. Rather, had you heard what I heard, you'd have marveled at
The unique pearls falling from this special string

6. If Qays suffered what I suffer for love of Layla
With such passion and desire

7. And Jamal did not suffer in his love for Bathna
As I suffer without falling ill like the sick

8. Between Al-Basit and a palm tree, if you could see
The bending branches at their prime

9. Between Al-Basit and a palm tree, if you could see
Souls wavering and bodies ailing

10. They marched, dragging their robes like
Bees dragging drops of honey in the palms of the sad

11. Melting from the cold with their softness
And from precious pearls their ornaments

12. What is the state of one whose heart pounds at night
While his body is struck by arrows?

13. When she walks bending her cheek in the darkness
She shakes the morning under the wing of night

14. Sick in the eyes, her glance works
Like white swords that permeate and pierce the soul

15. White are their robes, in them beautiful women
Whose piercing gazes and swaying hips stab and wound

16. I used to resist, unaffected by those eyes
Until they subdued me, grasping my reins

17. I knew the cruelty in my heart before
Now I'm the most obedient ever to my bridle

18. I've become an insomniac, terrified and sleepless
Bent over from separation and pain

19. Sigh, when the lightning flashes before me
And softly shines through the clouds

20. And when the doves coo upon the branches
The voice of every dove enchants me at dawn

21. O brothers, is there no refuge for me from passion
To save me from these judgements?

22. What is the state of one whose body resides in Yemen
While his heart resides in Damascus?

23. What is the state of one whose heart pounds at night
While his body is struck by arrows?

24. I associated with a people not of my land
Whose tents are in Damascus, not my tents

25. I gave them my heart, it wanders back in anger
I forget, and my days return in fever

26. Were it not for those who moved away, my eyes would not
Have poured tears continuously after tears

27. Were it not for remembering them, I would not have left
My people or abandoned the house of my abode

28. How often I said to the flickering lightning in the darkness
O lightning, give my greeting to the emigrants

29. If Qays suffered the misery of his love for Layla
Then I, too, am his brother in Islam

30. I suffer what Al-Amri suffered from passion
As he wandered aimlessly year after year

31. If I cried from our separation, then before me
Urwa ibn Hizam cried for separation and distance

32. O emigrants, if I were able, I would make them
Nothing between my entrails and my bones

33. Beauty grows in the soil of your land
And gracefulness in it pulls its sleeves

34. Magic lives in the darkness of your eyes
And intends by lovers all purposes

35. If beauty was apportioned, with you is most of it
By my life, the greatest portions

36. The hills and dunes beneath their coldness
And lightning flashes under every whisker

37. I cannot forget, when I visited you longing,
And love behind me, advancing and in front of me

38. I hugged your cheeks and sipped
From your cheeks and my years became fertile

39. I was content with it, would that it had lasted without weaning
From the visit that delighted me

40. You know I am constant
Remaining just and generous

41. If a man forgets his loved ones, I do not forget
A vow or hear the occurrence of blame