1. Have you watered the flowers of your cheek with life's sweet drink
Or have you watered them with a gentle breeze's hymn?

2. Your laughing cup has made the wine-pourer neglect his task;
For you have drunk deep of the wine of manhood and fame.

3. Love the bearer but leave the borne behind,
A sun wearing the mist as a crown.

4. Give him the wine-cup when dawn spills its seal,
Or give it to him sealed, like a locked antrum.

5. The first went and roamed and returned to be poured again,
As love, and returned to the bowl like a swarm of bees.

6. Judge me by the bowl of a pleasing wine -
You judged the buds of grapes to be wise.

7. Don't chase away the merry bird of rhyming -
No matter how much he repeats his song's tune.

8. And the shaking, wavering, laughing, dancing anklet,
And the night, dark and sad, prowling, howling.

9. And the amorous, circling, moaning dove,
And the complaining, weeping, wailing wind.

10. Meet me with your beautiful, delicate, graceful steps,
Or meet me in the eyes and features of a deer.

11. In your gazelle's eyes I discern witnesses that wound me,
Two piercing, sad, sleepy, dreamy eyes.

12. The crescent moon shaped a necklace for itself,
Piercing through the neck with its sharp horns.

13. Sweet is the wit that flows through his talk
And flows to your hearing like rhythmic pearls.

14. So you have plucked from his cheeks a flowering,
And read on his face something wonderful written.

15. The scent of roses has cleared the imagination of musk -
For I smelled the roses from his cheeks' breath.

16. The eyelids captivate so I worry
About the eyes, and the eyes refuse my passionate confusion.

17. O you who own my heart, I swear sincerely,
Cut in half, split in two like a ripe date.

18. Return to me half of it out of mercy,
If you are not totally merciful or kind.

19. Passion is a great friend, and if it becomes
A fire, I feel it is a paradise and pleasure.

20. Blameworthy as it is, I blame it for its love,
Did you ever see blame that is blameable?

21. Your eyes mean more than my mouth can utter,
So I chose silence, quietude, and stillness.

22. Rise, wearing the coat of happiness, lined with
The finest armament, armed from head to toe.

23. On a night paired with a day whose sun was
The full moon of beauty, Judge Abu Ibrahim.

24. The idol smasher in the house whose foundations
Were raised by hands long ago.

25. He who loads generosity with gifts when passion
Forms bonds of love, who makes mountains light as feathers.

26. If an equal is not born for him, perhaps
Time will bring one, though now he has no match.