1. She came as an apparition after nightfall,
Bestowing fantasies upon fantasies.

2. Her perfume awakens longing in her chambers,
Uniting for me presence with absence.

3. The night descended like a full moon upon her,
On a branch, on a swaying bough.

4. She shot from her eyelids a gazelle-like heart.
Her black tresses enveloped it after it was gone.

5.
As if her waist and my love for it

6. Were both gripped by sickness and wasting away.
My yearning has exhausted my body because of you,

7. Until it has become an example that is talked about.
A sorrow that my ribs cannot endure,

8. An abundance that has poured from my disgraced tears.
If I try to walk, I stumble,

9. Endless pains that my endurance cannot bear.
With Jesus beneath the wings of night she appears

10. Like strands of white in the hair of one in his prime.
Cheeks like flasks flowing

11. To the melody of glories and majesty.
Refuges which have long poured forth their wealth—

12. Valleys of revelation, mysterious, secluded.
Life will scent the aroma of those hills

13. When I scent the fragrance of publication from them.
And faces will don them when

14. The truthful, pure, and eloquent one spreads them.
Allah’s Messenger—the elite of those he created

15. And whom he saved from the wings of misguidance.
He came while the people were in the darkness of ignorance

16. And the religion of the religion was in the grips of nightfall.
So Allah established for him a firm pillar of guidance,

17. And disbelief was destined by it to decline.
With Badr he crowned polytheism with disgrace

18. By the ruling of the swords and lofty heights.
The regiments did not cease from Iraq,

19. Nor Syria, nor the furthest north.
He surrendered to Allah in peace upon him

20. And He renewed it constantly upon him.
Guidance has not ceased to reside in us

21. Through the state of his grandson, pride of glories.
They are pillars of praise—were it not for their protection,

22. The stars of Ursa Minor or the course of the crescent moon.
This glory is firmer than even iron chains

23. At whose honor even mountains crumble.
You are unmatched among the exalted, unique.

24. None can speak like you among them.
What of creation matched you in a race

25. Or matched your position in attaining or fighting?
What dangers of confusion have you met

26. Without leaving their bodies as quarries for swords?
What regiments did you charge without

27. Leaving their burdens for the cups of bliss?
Hope had abandoned us completely

28. Until we drank from your spring in clear water.
May you always build virtues

29. And spread what the nights have folded away.
You tied the good mention of seasons

30. That brought what was most splendid in nations.
None but you are the pillar of the religion.

31. None but you are the beauty of the times.