1. The stars marched slowly
Wandering, refusing haste to journey on

2. Secretly, like the pulse of a sick man's arm
And the smile of a beauty flashed

3. As though the sky a scroll unrolled
And the clouds departing thence

4. Dawned, glowing embers like flame
Sparks flying to the watchfires

5. Stirring lovesick longings in the heart
Waking its passion, then slept

6. Creeping weakly, the heart took flight
To what it remembered and dreamed of

7. Remembering its days in the shadows
Yearning, though it was but a dream

8. Raising up from its depths of old
Girding it with bonds of passion

9. Teasing it, then leaving it raving
Baring it, then decreeing it love

10. Since the eye departed, the tinder fell
Inclining to the heart the flints

11. Before it had been at peace
Then drew to its neck the sword

12. Before it the sickness had lain
Buried, then stirred up the illness

13. O lightning, what do you intend, O critic
Pillars seeking to harm whatever

14. To what do you feign to succor it
Raving, but in vain is succor to what

15. You say, and the causes of this love
Are mysteries to perplex all people

16. Is it my liver, his sword an isthmus
Displaying itself until it is perceived

17. By your life that is not so, but rather
Remembering Nejd and days sporting

18. Encampments where wishes attended us
And time for us was a boy

19. Alas for those days if only they would last
Alas for my dream if only it had endured

20. I adjure you, my friend, by love
The noble youth sees as binding law

21. Show me if an eye would blame
A man, my eyes with my tears are blind

22. My heart behind the riders I see
Taken captive, or else still there

23. Since the day we left the west
Bidding them farewell, they took down the tents

24. I lost it among the sands of the hill
And there is naught but gazelles standing

25. Gently, gazelles of the upland
Do you carry in my blood the sins?

26. God guard you, gazelle charming
Who brought sickness incurable to my body

27. I'm jealous of the dawn embracing him
And envious of the wine wetting his lips

28. If his cheek shows in the dusk
He makes the dusk from his light dusk

29. He passes the night in a meadow, heedless
If I pass the night, overflowing with love

30. And a night he visited my cohort
The light avoided, so the darkness hid

31. He came, the dusk attendant on foot
Beware the riders disclose the army

32. So he reached hastily my bed
And before it the smooth sands stretch

33. So I spent the night embracing his staff
Watching for the crescent's perfection

34. And smell the rose from his cheek
And sip the wine from his lips

35. And if only that farewell were
Farewell, and my sleep bid me dreams