1. O lightning, strike the highest peaks
And unleash there torrential downpours

2. Learn that, if you do not water them,
The clouds will have no value

3. A land long soaked by tears of yearning
And tears of lovers intermingled

4. The ruined dwellings glisten with water
From those remote hermitages and springs

5. May God preserve where Ismael strode
And let him drink deep from the rains

6. The days have made me drink poison
For the loss of him, from a goblet of anguish

7. Perhaps I will escape them without a pact
Or oath or covenant to constrain me

8. And on the day I depart, I will repay them
Let no tenderness for the day of parting deter me

9. O Abu al-Qasim, apportioner of fates
What is between my passion and its object is like a partition

10. If you could see how I love, you would find yourself
Perplexed, between ardour and composure

11. Brotherly love has excused us, for affection
Is a pure vein of the body's subtle fluids

12. That is a tattoo which, strive as I might,
I gained no benefit from comprehending or gaining intimacy with

13. If you could see him there, apart from me
You would not blame me for loving the people of Iraq

14. I have never wearied of that refined and noble pilgrim,
Possessed of forbearance and refined dispositions

15. Along with all I have sampled of other people
And travelled across all horizons

16. A torment which, if it were fed, would increase
To breadth of taste over honey's sweetness

17. Graceful-limbed ones, if they were clothed
Would outshine the finest silken garments

18. A new generation, and each day brings a pride
Some excel in the beauty of character

19. He eschews estrangement and shameful deeds, knowing
That to insult honours is lasting disgrace

20. So if people drive him to that
They find his tongue imprisoned and fettered

21. Loyalty and love unsullied in an age
When most affection is but hypocrisy

22. You found true brothers a livelihood more enticing
Than all these means of living

23. The noose has tightened around my neck, so with their hands
They loosened the knot of that strangling noose

24. They are intimate and familiar when wrapped
Together in the heat of excitement, leg entwined with leg

25. If they saw the star of annihilation they would remain
Rushing towards it, craning their necks

26. An offspring I did not inherit, and a treasure
Not of coarse wool, but of leaves