1. God has granted me old age after the loss of my loved ones
And the biting criticism of the satirists has worn me out

2. I wear my gray hair as yet another dye
But the dye of the Lord of the Throne is the best dye

3. When my hair grayed, so did my life in sorrow
It threw my heart into the fire of my desires

4. And I tried in vain to hide my grayness
It's enough that I'm a liar with this beard of mine

5. I was called the peacock of angels when
My hair waved like feathers in braids

6. I hadn't gotten old before my heart got old from love
My grayness drove away the young gazelles from me

7. A whiteness down which my tears flow as if
The tears of the eye were the friend of the tear

8. And fingers dyed with indigo grasp it
Left without loyalty at the blueing

9. So strange that it whitened in the hands of my beloved
Who loved the eyelids of my youth

10. And I gave myself to her openly and freely
So where is my virility now for marriage and my zeal?

11. I have a smooth-cheeked friend in the prime of youth
The soul yearns tenderly toward his radiant cheek

12. He donned the garment of dignity
Embroidered with gravity and propriety

13. Though marked with gray, he still
Stripped himself bare, youth was his finest garb

14. I see myself as a spotted raven in old age
Whose head he laments in every cry

15. And if I wake up one of the folk of grayness
Then I'm neither of Tayy nor are these people my kin

16. And he wouldn't repent when doubted from every suspicion
Except jokingly and teasingly

17. When one like me stands guard in the baths
Gloomy-faced, then falls asleep like a corpse

18. How ugly when his drivel flows from him
His penis stretched out like a laden camel

19. The baths were too narrow for him and his rivals
Were vexed, trouble after trouble

20. How he sucked from the pipe the rising steam
Wetting with it some of his clothes

21. Filthy as the water of brayed waterskins
The noses of those present sneezed from its stench

22. So in its corners were the works of the fuller
On the shaggy wool of an aged ram fleeced

23. In his mouth was the stench of poison
When it smelled, it made the musk scent wretched

24. So the hand of one who dyes his beard differently is cursed
With a dye he doesn't approve, curse it!

25. One night, unexpectedly, Sa'd visited me
An unscheduled pleasure visit

26. I stood up vigorously as if I were
A young man, if not for my shaking and stumbling

27. She said, "As for your limping, it's obvious
And I reckon that if not for your shaking, still a lad!"

28. I said, "I shake from ecstasy and love
And only tremble from the excess of my affection"

29. When we embraced she found no virility
Where is the strength of eighty years?

30. She reached out to grasp my manhood
But found nothing except the emptiness of my loins

31. Nay, but a withered, changed by the hand of decay
Resisting me in the form of the stubborn

32. It shrank when I tried to rouse it
Like a prickly hedgehog in its burrow

33. She rose to my bent, polished neck
I said, "Victory belongs to the steadfast!"

34. And I moved toward intercourse, stumbling, saying
"You've taken charge, so treat me kindly today, finish me!"

35. She said, "What wrong did I commit?" I said, "Our conceit
With a beard's dye like crumbled chaff"

36. "Be rid of me, O you whose teeth have fallen out, sparse
As the little water on sprouted barley"

37. When it settles in the hand of an offended one
I ask which of the resting places settled it

38. Oh the days of youth and its goodness!
Oh for my days of indulgence and pleasure!

39. And the nights when I used to imitate
Every beautiful and tender maid

40. I took off my chaste garb after wearing it in youth
Anew, though not wearing it for the finest raiment

41. When a reproacher reproached me in it
It diminished with her though it had swelled - hush!

42. When I was a hyena toward every lion
Heavy, light-sleeping, my foolishness showing

43. How after coupling you see me sleeping
On my back, with Umayra's robe covering me

44. Oh the sweet days with Umayra's skin
How often it protected my honor and virtue!

45. And the days of indulgence I spent with it
Twisting about in bed

46. Nothing bothered me but the spots and their fineness
And my fidelity to my friends and company

47. After the graying of my temples, is there still pleasure?
When those eighty years made me a grandmother

48. If grayness clothes me in black, I'm still
Sorrowful for the days the flower of my youth withered

49. I don't care about those who reject me
If the generous ones of my clan are pleased with me