1. I complain of forbidden love to my companion,
While he who suffers it should complain, even if intentional.

2. I have not seen anyone as sleepless as I am out of need
That has squeezed him without poverty or distance.

3. An allowance for a needy man who wants her allowance,
And it is more fitting if hardship befalls him that she be gentle.

4. I courted her before, so why has her heart hardened,
And made the intimate friend whom she loved spurned?

5. If I were to attain what I have attained with her
With the dried, solid rock from the mountain, it would have melted.

6. It is not my words or enmity that made her disobey,
Nor has she been harsh and stern with me out of spite.

7. So when it seemed to me she was provoked
By the slanderer against me, instigating her rage,

8. I said to her while her eyes overflowed with tears
That were flowing in them, repeatedly streaming,

9. Did distance from me make you avoid me, or your chastity
Prevent you for what they did, or did you come, intending to refuse me?

10. Did I not oppose my family for your sake
And subdue the threatening admonisher for you?

11. And I frequented the flowers most inclined to you
For your sake, until their flesh faded away.

12. So she said, “You have boasted of connection with me and made
The least and most trivial of what I found in you too much to enumerate.

13. Do not think the estrangement of a friend is chivalry,
Nor will you attain what you live by estrangement forever.”

14. “Indeed, you have found affection with me
Of love that only grows and renews.”

15. “So be harsh to him who abandons you and gentle to him
Who visits you rarely and make him who is accustomed, accustomed.”

16. “And appoint for me a tryst and do not fail me
At the station of lovers, if you desire an appointment.”

17. So I said to her, “We will meet calmly in four nights,
When the people of the neighborhood have gone to sleep.”

18. When four nights passed, I said, “Bring me
My steed and adorn it with a bridle and whip.”

19. The servants brought it at night as if
They were leading an untamed colt when first saddled.

20. They tightened the saddle straps, then I mounted it
Like a pile of wood when struck by the whip it rages.

21. It steps with the gait of a well-trained racer; whenever
It recovers from one bout of frenzy it goes into another.

22. It surges ahead when the bridle chafes its lip
And bites the bit with its teeth, frothing.

23. It brought me from afar as if it could see
The rugged, impregnable mountain, so it bounded.

24. When we reached the side of the tryst I had
Been promised, I almost hesitated to be evasive.

25. I waited a little while, then I was about to see
What I had hoped for- and how prolonged a lad’s wait seems!

26. It gave a whistling sound, then neighed with what I deserved,
I was delighted by it and fortune dealt me the best cards.

27. Behind it a yellowish, dusty-cloaked woman
Sauntered nearby, sauntering affectionately.

28. She walked like a wild cow passing through Dhu Ghusa
Meandering through the arid plain, bedding down.

29. When we met, she smiled and showed gladness,
Both of us inclining toward the one each loved more.

30. Both of us whispering privately in the darkness to his beloved,
Purity, affection- as long as we remained immortal.

31. And my steed spent the night, its leg the leg of Talha,
At Abhar, belonging to my Mawla, the shooting star of dew.

32. It paws, so Ali turns it aside,
Bent is its branch, until it almost broke.

33. The veins of the earth have been gouged out by it, so it encountered
At the side of a depression in the soil, soft and thick.

34. It is prevented from settling down by the fact
That it remembers a beautiful woman, so it remained saddled.

35. And a home that protects it from heat in every summer,
And the place of filtered, cool water if it is cold.

36. It did not recover from the intoxication of love between us,
An intoxication it has had for a long time, ever renewed,

37. Until the light of the dawn column appeared as if
The column of dawn on a day had been stripped bare.