1. Faces like stars in the night, each one
A lamp for the sorrowful from every brilliant wick.

2. They shine like goblets when the night covers them,
It leads them insistently towards it.

3. I knocked at a shopkeeper's door at dawn
While darkness draped like a curtain.

4. When I knocked on his door it startled him
And he said, between hope and fearful apprehension:

5. "Who is that?" So I said: "A youth called by his pleasure,
He cannot be prevented from it."

6. He laughed at my words and said: "You have
Stirred up my fear of something confusing."

7. And someone happy passed by with a light,
And snatched away an untouched maiden, unseen by suitors,

8. Sheltered in her bower from strangers' eyes
By Chosroes the crown-bearer.

9. A eunuch whirls her around in his revelry, a filthy
Descendant of perfidious Dhu'dhawwad with earrings and anklets,

10. Boasting over us that the night is his mantle,
The sun his necklace, and variegated silk his adornment,

11. While fate is not straight like an ordered path,
Rather he hurls it into disarray and turmoil.