1. Love settled in my heart and took up residence
And yearning commanded my heart and gave orders

2. The gazelles’ glances attacked my heart
With their beauty—where can my heart flee?

3. By my father I swear, her languid glance
Reaped no harvest but made excuses

4. Who will protect me, who will help me in passion?
My vengeance and desire were lost amid the branches

5. O my heart, you were wary of love your whole life
Can wariness ever deliver?

6. And by my soul! When night falls dark
Who will grasp sleep and gift me wakefulness?

7. A tender branch, a crescent moon, a sprinkle of rain
Whether they perish, appear or stir

8. If he showed his face to the maidens one day
They would say, “God is most great! This cannot be a man!”

9. Two nights visited in my two nights—a night for the darkness
To fold its wings and a night for the dawn

10. So I took the branch inside my cloak
And kissed the wind from between the pearls

11. I said, “Gently! Do not startle,
These are but tears, more shimmers”

12. My words embarrassed him
Mixing roses with blades of grass

13. Blessed is the night we enjoyed when
The flowers bloomed in the house of the moon

14. And we praised patience in passion, and how often
Has a lover praised patience after he showed strength

15. You braved the sea of love and tears—can hopes
Be attained save by diving?

16. So union spread over separation like the triumph
Of the people of Beni Nasr over fate

17. I am the sea of generosity and sovereign of people
And God’s swords strike down the unbeliever

18. The pride is theirs by right, and enough
That my father Al-Hajjaj is a name for pride

19. What glory has its signs so secured
That it is recited just like the suras?

20. May it last in continual joy and wish
Fulfilment, prayers joining the innocent

21. No garden blossomed, made verdant
By rain, without the breeze telling the flowers about it