1. Did you give me magic or a draught of comfort?
Are your eyes for magic or for sweetness, O companion?

2. If you wanted the drunk to wake, you would find
from your cheeks, roses and apples enough.

3. "Pillows may heal, but glances still wound"
O religion of my heart from suffering and wounds!

4. Does old age, though its vanguards spread,
when we meet again, erase dreams of youth?

5. Let abstinence die choking with rage
What can the slick-tongued say to the eloquent?

6. You wept for the gentle one of my eyes and my cheek
who spends the night between fluttering and clapping.

7. If passion rouses my longing, no wonder,
for fire is seen in breaths and winds.

8. O day of radiance in the valley, on the rug,
you healed the pain of my heart's pursuer.

9. A river whose brides, from thickets,
played for it with souls and ghosts.

10. It rejoiced like a child, its waves entranced,
leading to the water-seeker's lips yearning.

11. Its banks rose on both sides to
the tenderest flower of a smiling face.

12. It grows and flows on continually
with a dimple of brightness and joy.

13. Until it becomes a torrent of violence,
difficult to lead, loud-voiced, gurgling.

14. Complaining of reeds where it flowed,
raging among them with swords and spears.

15. It marched through no region or mountain
without addressing it, sometimes mumbling, sometimes articulating.

16. At every stage a different tune - from murmur
to roar, to elegy's chanting.

17. It struggles in its narrowness until its banks spread;
then it flows freely, swimming playfully.

18. If the morning breeze teases it, it frowns with the drunkard's frown at the wind.
And if its eddies clash and seethe,

19. you hear from its waves the clapping of joy.
And if it tosses in the valley, squeezed,

20. you hear the grumbling of a fretful chest.
Gentle, though faced with an abyss, it hurls itself;

21. I see determination, repetition, and persistence.
It fell, foamed but did not hold up its train

22. from its wandering, and shot beyond the bow of the shooter.
It babbles and flows to a new constellation

23. of firers succeeding swordsmen and spear-throwers.
Its spray scattered here and there

24. like moths around a lamp.
Or a swarm of aroused bees from their hive,

25. or rain in the wind's blast, pouring.
Or a string of pearls from a singing throat,

26. or the spit of a partridge shot by a hunter.
When it branches out in the valley you'd think a hand

27. stretched its fingers in a swimmer's fist.
And if it seeps into a meadow, dressing it in a gown,

28. it is a scarf, a necklace, a ring.
It sways in a parade, its nightingales singing,

29. telling of the joy of weddings and bliss.
How often it adorns itself with swaying branches

30. in a flutter like eternal gardens, fragrant!
You'd think its gleaming flowers amid greenery

31. the tail of a peacock, if it shimmered.
The sun sends from its threads a net

32. upon the fruits of pearls, touching them.
Light varies in coloring its silk

33. with different hues of crimson and daybreak.
When the deep blue sky appears above it,

34. dawn behind the darkness smiles from the horizon.
Where are the galaxies compared to a river shining

35. with brilliance? What a gap between different worlds!
Its star is not like any star in its banks

36. of every lovely pattern, luminous.
I greet it with the gentlest cooing of doves,

37. and their warbling is a frequent chatter.
When a branch sways under the fir tree,

38. you cannot tell which is more melodious.
You see moths frolicking on its flowers,

39. sipping from them with cups and goblets.
If they flutter around the blossom chaotically,

40. you'd think them sparks from flint of a lighter.
Many a willow has bowed down bashfully

41. when the fawn exposed a leg like a swimmer.
The double-faced narcissus checks its coquettish glancing

42. when the tamarisk sways its flint-like tinder.
The blossom twists its neck and smiles from

43. pearls, and glances with a twinkling eye.
The breaths of spring slept on it, so parts are honeyed

44. and parts exhale perfume discreetly.
O you drinking springtime! However much

45. you guard secrecy many a scent betrays you.
The wind passes gently through the reeds, narrating

46. the sweet scent and breaths redolent.
If the oleander sways in the breeze,

47. it is a raging fire or a cloud's clamor.
Gardens of Eden wherein every fruit

48. and crops, grapes and apples.
It bestowed life and beauty wherever it flowed,

49. meandering, neighbor to neighbor and companion.
This, Damascus, is its gift,

50. ennobled by it, graced with bestowal.
In Al-Ghoutah, there is an amazing view -

51. a sea swimming with wooden vessels.
O you whose hand created a river and made

52. an ocean frothing with trees and rafts!
How many times in the plane tree's shade on the rug,

53. amid its thickets, the brave rested and roamed!
We were like a pair of smooth doves at dawn;

54. one pecks and the other tries to take the peck.
Both crave what is due from the other,

55. importunate, demanding a demand be met.
When their beaks meet they shudder in fervor

56. and crane their necks in mutual thirst and desire.
They exchange sips, sweet in their glitter,

57. blending souls and spirits.
They are never sated or quenched in their ardour;

58. the sweet drives them to excess and insistence.
Memory cuts my liver and inflames it

59. and perhaps relieves my worry and comforts me.
It brings passion alive and yearning to

60. a heart accustomed to youth and love at peace.
Stop at the riverbank, face its

61. sea of poetry, foaming with desire.
O gentle one, protected, you see and hear

62. the inspirer arousing me.
Say to one who troubles the clear water, Do not,

63. seek not corruption after repair.
You returned the sweetest fragrance from its streets,

64. so cease harming an irrigation ditch or waterway.
You did not heed the sanctity of the valley, hurling at it

65. every muddled speech that makes a child turn white-haired.
Pasture for gazelles, make it not

66. a dunghill for foxes and horned beasts.
Do not frighten the doves from the boughs

67. with a snarling wolf or shrieking falcon.
Have mercy on the finches nesting on branches

68. from every black-fanged predator with claws unsheathed.
Do not let the valley's lambs, grazing,

69. fall to the wolf's claws or the butcher's knife.
For a fertile house, as long as you do not ravage its precincts,

70. its pasture will always provide provender.
O locksmith, the one given a lock is wearied

71. of treating it; a locked door unopened by its key is useless.
A ship blown by the winds of passions in the night;

72. I feared for it, for sailors are treacherous.
I see the stars healing their positions

73. while symbols speak more clearly than plain commentary.
Mine is to unleash the arrow that hits its mark, not

74. mine if it fails to pierce the hide of a crocodile.