1. Is it a mishap with Layla, or avoidance?
Or is it that affection for Layla remains as it was,

2. Yet Layla demands and complains more?
Don’t you know, O Layla, I can be submissive

3. And gentle when angered?
When I spend lavishly, hoping for repayment,

4. Should wealth be lost unjustly?
Layla ignores my words and frowns.

5. At night she said, when the riding beasts were ready,
“Where are you going with your packed belongings?”

6. Do you have some purpose in every place you migrate to?
Such is the way of a scattered man.

7. By God, her camel kept pleading with me
Until the sun nearly set.

8. Let me be! Death has no defense against me,
Nor does he who has lost interest in life seek more.

9. To you, Obedullah, our riding beasts incline.
They roam the unknown desert and persist.

10. Her eyes have smoldered as if they were
The pools of a desert whose water flows gently.

11. So I said to her, “Do not complain of the where.
Before you is a coin from Umayyah ibn Shabib.”

12. When others mention the superiority of some man of the past,
The superiority of Obedullah is fresher and sweeter.

13. Were a wound to be healed by you, it would not return,
For you are a claw and fang against enemies.

14. Obedullah and glory are the choicest
Allies—neither Hibr nor Yathrib equal them.

15. And you are foremost in pursuing good.
So rejoice! You have attained what you sought.

16. Help me with a useful register of your registers,
For each day has brought you ample provision.

17. If you were to seek something of me,
A family and welcome would come to you in speech.