1. I wept to a flock of wild cats as they passed by me,
Unfettered hawks, no prison confines them, no shackles.

2. By Allah, it was not out of envy,
But out of yearning - for their shape is like mine.

3. So fly away, neither my body impaired nor my soul,
Neither sick nor my eyes weeping their bereavement.

4. Happy are they that none of them are separated,
That none among them tasted the remoteness from their folk.

5. That they do not, like me, spend the night with their hearts fluttering,
Whenever the prison door creaks or the lock rattles.

6. This is not what actually befalls me, but
I described what was inborn in creation from the first.

7. For my soul, yearning to meet the doves,
Nothing equals me in loving to live free of fetters.

8. Oh, may Allah protect the wild cats and their young!
For my young deserted me, failed by food and shade.