1. You outshone the full moons when you eclipsed their beauty,
And put them to shame when you were brighter than their light.

2. When we hoped for yet more of your beauty,
You sent us, from the magic of your glances, a wakeful charm

3. That wards off sleep lest it grow used to our eyelids.
I stayed up thinking I would leave your pleasures

4. While my conscience pulled away from loving you,
So my eyes kept watch, though you glanced disapprovingly,

5. And my body saw your slender waist.
It imitated you, but your refined subtlety increased my fervor.

6. You encompassed a beauty created in its image,
So we called you the full moon, for you were like it.

7. Since loveliness from you was apportioned like its apportionment,
You resembled your brother, the full moon, at its perfection,

8. Year after year, as you two were of equal splendor.
You imprisoned my heart when you denied me your visit,

9. And unleashed my tears, had they gushed like my agonized sighs.
I said, as passion laid bare my secret:

10. “Gentle lady, if your distance unleashes my tears,
Then my heart has prisons within its prisons.”

11. I am deprived of peace if I do not visit you with affection,
And carry the burdens of youth and passion.

12. For the sickness of the heart has no cure but you.
If you veil yourself in white and dark, passion

13. Makes bearing the sword thrusts and spears lighter for the lover.
I will transcend the limits of al-Mushrifiyyah and al-Qinaa,

14. I will hasten to your glades, whether winding or straight,
And welcome death, so I may attain the wished-for end.

15. This yearning is only to visit you openly,
And even if the lion of calamity prevents that pleasure,

16. My patience runs out after the remoteness of my beloved,
What is it to them, if they had respected the rights of companionship?

17. I stay up, and passion has not diminished my love,
O sweethearts! My youth was spent on you,

18. And you never gratified me, even for a day, with your kindness.
Restore for us the goodness of union that has passed,

19. For, after your remoteness, space has narrowed around me,
And do not abandon me, for life has ended and faltered,

20. I have not gotten from your hoped-for union any consent,
Nor tasted, from your feared estrangement, any safety.

21. I kept my vow to you, with affection and the will to visit,
My heart did not waver in passion for you or distract,

22. So how could you break the pact with one whose bosom passion inflamed?
We had tied a bond we would not turn from passion,

23. You have dissolved the life of love, while we have not.
I will not ask whether you turned away or came closer,

24. Nor will I dissolve if you cut off or joined ties,
Rather, I am pleased with what you have done,

25. So thank you for ordaining, when you distanced yourselves from us,
Neither disconnection from you, nor from ourselves.