1. Does this coquetry and rejection ever end,
And does my humility and passion ever finish?

2. Everything but the Creator has a limit,
Yet Your displeasure - oh misery - has no limit.

3. Give me Your hard heart, like a rock's solidity,
For how often has the solid rock given life?

4. With Your nearness, patience becomes sweet, yet
With Your distance, even honey turns bitter.

5. A maiden pledged her soul in a promise,
So she found money but I found only the promise.

6. Leave me be to my own affairs, cease tormenting me,
Grant that I'm the loser, I'm not pleased with rejection.

7. Grant that she persists in distance and disdain,
My pride is to persevere despite her disdain, a slave.

8. And nothing equals distance in pain for a lad,
For without You life itself pains the longing lover.

9. A sea and time stand between us,
And crossing them falls short, despite all effort.

10. No harm but the tides in her sea of kindness,
Oh my woe! Will the rising tide perhaps assist?

11. Often I consoled myself with diversions,
Yet they did not distract me from thoughts of her.

12. To what extent can I humiliate myself when my soul refuses?
After me comes nearness, and with nearness comes distance.

13. O Lord's mercy upon every lover
Who aspires to glory while losing the right path.

14. Can one seek glory when passion is his faith?
How can a lover's humility attain glory?

15. Can one seek glory while enslaved, fettered?
Is it possible to unite two opposites?

16. The utmost honor and esteem he may gain
Is when a hand waves to him in greeting.

17. It is pride enough for a lad if he is a lover
That a Hind graces him with a smile from afar.

18. You grant me an ear one time, another time you refuse,
Thus in love, acceptance and refusal both bring sweetness.

19. May God grant you a beautiful beloved,
And increase your wonder since fortune began to serve you.

20. If one day she raised her thin veil,
Her creation's praise of its Creator would appear.

21. Her stance tells of swaying branches,
Though the fruits of her stance are her breasts.

22. She bared her eyelids to a sharp sword,
So I said: My heart, be the scabbard.

23. That is no blue line above her breast,
But pure snow seeming blue.

24. That is no mole, but my slain passion
Found shade in her cheeks, so the rose covered it.

25. That ornament adorning her neck is not a necklace,
Rather, its charm comes from her neck itself.

26. That is no lightning, but when she bid farewell,
Her cheeks reddened, revealing her beauty spot.

27. Every eloquent one boasts of his relation,
Yet say: that can only be for her to recite.