1. I say at the top of two palm trees as the night
Has passed its midpoint and the caravan slept

2. To the graceful one whose company I miss
Though below them I fight, to God I shall return

3. A Yemeni girl from a victorious people has me yearning
And the blowing winds bring the scent of her perfume

4. And what stirs the heart, my friend, is her voice
When the doves at dawn mourn in lament

5. As if when the night maddens me with thoughts of her
I’m a captive and the mosques have kept him awake

6. He sees death as gain, as rest, and what troubles him
Is hardship, so he longs for death

7. So how when she is recalled and my walking stick as home
And without her are high impassable mountains

8. Rather, in the riding camel is bondage for a man in love
When a great anxiety comes to him as gain

9. And excellent is the cure of distance and worry is a bridge
My white smooth sword a cutting blade

10. I roam the elevated path to Tanuf
On it, from the hunter, the gazelle has departed

11. Like one carefully opening the sealed wine at night
The drinking companions have cups of it

12. So I, though the foe lies in wait for us, head towards you
My spearhead reaches your roots cleaving

13. And a drawer of water you are, though guards try
To bar me from you, still I’ll contend

14. Don't you know whenever we show a spurner our love
I won't approach so she can pretend

15. I’d be content with little of what’s with you
Had you given it to me, even morsels

16. If houries appeared to an ascetic hermit
Who’d cloistered himself from what seminaries contain

17. For eighty years he’d desire them if they approached
Though his prayer niche would be too narrow

18. When the night hides her in the veil, after
The bedouin's perfumed cloak gathers them in

19. The scent of his garment's folds mingles with musk
Grown on the trees watered down in the valley

20. The embers glow with the kindling, the fire
With Indian amber so the tent pole gleams

21. As if a peddler refused to sell his exquisite
Yemeni coffee, though a shrewd tradesman feigns

22. In three states he tries for a chance
From the market, not knowing when it may be gone

23. She bares her teeth after slumber
And the stars incline towards the valley