1. By my life! I do not control my youth
So it wandered freely over plains and rugged land

2. Nor am I one who prefers frivolity so that his heart
Gets drunk by night and drunk by morning

3. Nor do I knock on a Jew's door feebly
While the sleepers are sunk in their wine's rapture

4. And Satan has led him astray until he is
More lost in sin than lost at sea

5. I take meals secretly when drinking is denied
And pawned my clothes at dawn to pay for wine

6. As if I never heard Muhammad's book
And what the Revelation contains of warnings

7. A little water drawn from the river
Suffices me from all they delight in

8. With it is my drink when thirsty, and all that
My dependents need for dough and cooking pot

9. With bread and onions, no meat, yet I
Thank and praise Allah abundantly for it

10. So, O friend of meat and wine, do you see
In my face, when you look upon my face, any harm?

11. By God, if I lived ninety Pilgrimages more
I would not crave in them for wine

12. Nor would my soul delight in a musical instrument or
My heart incline towards lute or flute

13. And they tell me there is bitterness in it
Yet what need has man in drinking for bitterness?

14. Brother, count what you endured and how
The world turned over you with good and evil

15. Then do you have in the world but the hour in which
You are either fortunate or afflicted by misfortune?

16. What of it was not felt and not seen
And what was not blind to thought?

17. Blessed is the servant whom God takes his spirit
From the world through righteous work

18. But I am told their souls over there
Are in exalted, glorious rank and worth

19. And their bodies—the earth eats not their flesh—
Do not decay, until the end of time