1. Your blessings veil no ingratitude of mine
That I should turn from one whose rule and faith sustain me;

2. I have no praise or thanks for loyalty
Less than my life, which you vouchsafe to me.

3. My life is duty-bound to you, though death should come;
How render thanks for gifts so small you've given me?

4. Still it shines on, that favour whose fair star
Leads me through glooms of hazard happily.

5. Free from all taint of vulgar ostentation
Stands my devotion and its praise of you concealed,

6. Far from my people and my native land,
By your grace severed from both land and sea;

7. On such a course have I embarked and spent
My streaming tears, disdained all pity for these eyes;

8. I bow them down before your conquering hands,
As you exalt me and delight in me.

9. Alarmed, my heart throbs in a withering passion
That sighing spreads its thrall and heaves tumultuously;

10. I curb my grief while she is all unheeding,
Though from her eyes a furtive glance reproaches me.

11. ‘How yield,’ I cry, ‘my passion its desire
While Mansur's will commands me otherwise?’

12. The swords of duty fight against my side;
I make their keen edge press my ribs that scorn repose,

13. Accept her coquetry's long torment for my solace,
And cry to my sad eyes, ‘Weep on, weep on!’

14. Should the Beloved's shafts now piece my liver,
Her favour compensates me, captive to its force;

15. Should her farewell now slay my patience utterly,
Approach me then again: your nearness is my life.

16. Does Fortune deny me all your gifts? Then I
Reproach my portion's lack of bounty in your hand;

17. I pledge to you myself whene'er she frowns on me;
Your generosity exceeds no bound that I have known.

18. What shade but yours should cloak me? At whose fount
Should I find draughts except your spring to cool my thirst?

19. Far from me be the steeds that others prize
If I am barred the dapple greys and bays you own!

20. Full oft I take the rough part of those rides,
Firm in their turmoil, plunged in their depths of woe,

21. Spurning each smooth-paced whitening steed, each one
Of delicate cheek whose harnessed finery gleams.

22. Just so, self-sacrificed, is my content in you
If I devote myself. None strives as fiercely as I.

23. But shafts of destiny cease not to seek me out
And shed their arrows on my watering-place;

24. Charging, they drive the lion 'midst his riders' ranks,
And stretch their long necks like the snakes.

25. The white steeds flow beneath their banners' shade
And plunge through the water amid the willow trees,

26. Until they yield you back your land, whose ancient kings
Acknowledged your fathers' sovereignty.

27. There they cast down a horseman, and the Greeks flowed past;
They stripped the bracelets and the jacinths from their arms.