1. I reproach not, nor fear to die by the palm,
Nor refuse obedience to Iraq's king.

2. I abandoned her from whom he banned me,
Though she was to me like the last water-skin.

3. He may go at dawn to beg in the street,
And get pardon before the lane is filled.

4. Whenever they moved to their camp,
Their chieftain marched ahead with the racers.

5. The product of a polished Karm wood,
Lighting the night in the peopled porch,

6. Of a hue so soft it almost disappears
Before my eye, and sweet to the taste,

7. There ran what her creation had sensed
When she passed the spittle of the disdainful.

8. The days brought her to decay
Till her body failed, but the soul remains.

9. I outdrank the blamers in drinking her
With the slender-waisted in the fine garments.

10. I have a she-camel I push to the limit,
Milking for his love the water of the waterholes.

11. His eye beckoned me, beyond regret,
And told me when there would be a meeting.

12. I spend the night in the promise of union,
Yearning for it as for the pain of separation.

13. I have grown old, repenting of a grey hair,
While the caliph has granted me immunity from hostility.