1. With my soul a taproot burrowing in a loving heart
Yet you see it recoiling in the raiment of an intimate

2. My eyes brim over
With imaginative tears

3. As if all the beauty
Had decided to forsake me

4. And chose instead to tend
That blossoming garden

5. Tomorrow the rose will take root in my cheeks
And the sword of your gaze will stand guard

6. You held up a goblet like the moon
To greet the brilliant full moon

7. And passed the cup around
Toasting us

8. Leaving behind the dead lovers
To join the living

9. A face that glows amidst the lamps
Becomes the sixth of five bright stars

10. I held up my cup and said
This is for you, from me

11. For I have wasted my life
Lost in yearning

12. With gentle grace you replied
Indeed, and I as well!

13. So pour, mix and sing to me
For my poetry graces gatherings

14. It is the fruit of fruits, and of gatherings
Did not the one so skilled

15. In the art of beauty say
Whoever finds the soft rains

16. Let him tether himself and submit
So here I am under the protection

17. Of the victorious king
Impregnable in his glory

18. His majesty established
The pillar of faith who sings for every wretch

19. While for him the lions pose no threat

20. O king who brings me
Safety and bounty!

21. You fulfill my wishes
And more wishes besides

22. Lowering yourself
To raise my station

23. Exalting nobility
And deeper meaning

24. Without you, dispeller of champions
Knowledge among people would fade

25. Those who sought your limit
In generosity have strayed

26. And those who compared your rain
To mere showers, have transgressed

27. For how can any measure mete
The most fine and gentlest?

28. Rain is begged for when withheld
It flows not but with darkened mien

29. You make white pearls
Stream from the clouds

30. And the black lines of calligraphy
Aspire to elegance

31. Seeking the sublime, the clouds
Become my ladder’s rungs

32. While good deeds are
What remain

33. Unhorsing the fiercely warring knight
And making the unarmed man the horseman

34. I praise my travels and state
As they brought me closer to you

35. And increased my fervor
And plight

36. You redoubled my hopes
And means

37. So I tarry not with requests
You showered me with garments of bounty

38. Until the parched yielded to the moist
Can I claim to repay

39. With these lines of praise?
And does reality yield

40. To metaphors?
Yet extempore am I

41. Moved to versify
And where I fall short

42. God suffices
If I strung pearls into a necklace of praise

43. I'd still despair of fulfilling what is due