1. Yes, those are the beauties between the two valleys,
And that is a charming flock beneath them.

2. I was not their equal when they appeared with your soul,
So below you I died, though this mixture will disappear.

3. It is as if the daughter of Qays among her sisters
Is a gazelle watched over by hunting cheetahs.

4. AFLuttering, shivering, Bedouin girl,
With resting places between her ribs.

5. I gave up my revelry, then came to arouse it,
And without contention I thrust lances and spears.

6. How often an alien with piebald horses and spears,
We have books, and the parting ones are messages.

7. Passions roused my heart with an army of love,
So the flirting gazelle fled from them.

8. With arrows of words whose blades were not yet forged,
And with glances like swords burnished by whetstones.

9. On them many slain lovers, though no famous sword was drawn,
Nor any firm-knotted rope was loosened.

10. My Aramean, all the arrows hit their mark,
While you are my archer and I your warrior.

11. And I am valiant, though timid in your presence,
Gallant among the living, yet tranquil with you.

12. Speech goes astray when I visit her abode,
And evades me, though I know what I would say.

13. Her unquestionable proof, in every case,
Makes her wrong right and my right wrong.

14. She charges me with the whites of the sword blades and spears
For what the fate lines in me promised.

15. I am not to blame if my heart is keen,
The sword is sharp and the slim steed fleet.

16. Yet time has warded off its disasters from me
As the debtor fends off the importunate creditor.

17. When I remember days gone by and call them back,
I milk tears while they are departing throngs.

18. Had the world been gained by merit I would have granted it
Virtues that would encompass it and virtues that would remain.

19. But time runs its course, however it has run,
Casting down its noble deeds and raising up the low.

20. It rarely meets with open-handed cordiality,
And I fear the day is near when even the cordial shall be few.

21. I am not brusque-faced with a friend,
Nor one who says to a guest, “Are you leaving?”

22. Rather, drink your fill in meadows of your choice,
Though you ask for life spans that none can request.

23. He who pardons every sinner
Shall attain from us what no means can attain.

24. We have the final word on the matter, in our breasts
Towering over the over-reaching necks of the foe.

25. Our small ones are great in kindness,
Our last ones the first in excellence.

26. If I spend a day in which I find no companion,
Or speak a word and find none to converse with me.