1. Do not ask me tomorrow about Numan’s bliss
And be gentle, for your state is not my state

2. My tears flow and your tear is still
My liver is tied and your heart is empty

3. You have blamed me in love, and if you had tasted what I tasted
You would have lost direction like my days of misguidance

4. I do not stand at Layla’s dwellings
And my asking is of no use, nor is my question

5. You have sworn oaths to me and broken them and turned
Away from my arrival and ignored my union

6. And her imagination has protected me in my sleep
May God protect the image of that imagination

7. Oh how I suffer from her separation, oh for her sake
The day they packed the camel for travel

8. They set out early with the suns under the canopies
And traveled with the camel over the dunes

9. I have made the separation cheaper, every hidden teardrop
And so the separation is cheap, however dear

10. Oh my friend from Shima’s protected place
Returning to the shedding burqa

11. And restore to me the tale that was
For Layla is above passion and reproach

12. And the nights that passed with commerce
Oh how I regret those nights

13. And ask the young man, how long did he spend with them
A flame with firewood and burning coal

14. Whenever it softened and I said my cure is near
The fertile place sparked more than a mare in heat

15. I remembered from Mu’ayyad the best pasture
That she grazes, and the sweet flowing water

16. And open spaces that I ransom with spaces
And shade that I ransom with shade

17. My Mu’ayyadi friend, whenever
Hard times befall me, says what is wrong with you

18. Sa’da the bright daughter of Kuhlan presided
And she presided over all before maturity

19. From Abu Bakr this was attained, and Obed
Abdullah and the cub resembling the old lion

20. From Bilal bin Bardah the glory was inherited
And who is like Bardah and Bilal