1. A questioner asked about a beloved whose absence pains him - that is his affliction,
And his passion is sincere, a witness to his passion.

2. Let the eyelids rain in their sleeplessness
A downpour - the souls of passionate youths are its water.

3. Prepare with coiled tendrils a memory of yearning
That smolders over the embers of yearning - his entrails.

4. And when the Gazelle showed you the setting of its splendor,
Imagine that it arched its body for you - its curve.

5. Aim the swords of indifference, for perhaps
Their blades in the dark will be its slaughtering.

6. All the passion and love that youth arouses for you -
Its leaves, when touched or when they wither away.

7. The moist branch did not sway, but rather
Blossomed in its tenderness - its burgeoning.

8. So look to a torch with the fever's drafts
Protected from them as it grew older - its aging.

9. And seek the breeze's whispers as a message
Entrusted to its waving - its undulation.

10. By my life, the absent moon whose light
Vanished from my eyes, though in my ribs is its rising,

11. Had cast its darkness into my gaze,
And flowed into my heart - say then: its blackening.

12. It rode the darkness, cloaked, and confided in it
A beauty on which hopes were pinned - its expectations.

13. The horizon was like an Abyssinian, except
That its cheeks were tattooed with its full moon - its adornment.

14. The moon is a king, and the Pleiades a respite
That stretched toward it, and the stars its granting.

15. Until dawn revealed itself in its sides
As if it were Rome split open - its flanking.

16. Intellect dawned, so I said: the jealousy of Ahmed
Or what illuminates minds - its illumination.

17. It drizzled, like the clouds' summoner, as though
Its opinions for the reformist - its quenching and slaking.

18. The swords of lightning brandished in its expanse
As if flashing - its opinions.

19. The meadow's breeze crept through its midst
Sweetly - the praise it inspires in palaces - its extolling.

20. The birds conversed in their branches
Wondrously - as if their twigs were its kindling.

21. A meadow whose varieties delight you,
And whose shade stretches above it - its extending.

22. It preserved the Law strictly, so for its sake
The scholars named it: defender of the faith - their guarding.

23. Unique among them in its lofty glory,
Yet they are its partners in state - its peers.

24. Its fathers are the exalted kings of Persia,
And the Arabs in its favour are its sons - its offspring.

25. So to the Persians it became the finest of cavaliers,
Attributed to them, and to highness - its nobility.

26. The sea of knowledge surges from its breast,
Its abundance withheld and its illumination.

27. It relates the hadith of Mohammed, spreading
What its ignorant ones had nearly extinguished - their ignorance.

28. The Law was a ruin whose traces had faded
Had the transmitters not built its structure - its erection.

29. The light of the dawn of its knowledge continues to shine
Dispelling the night of passion until its darkness recedes.

30. Our month of fasting would ransom it - it who
Cannot be ransomed, even if all months pooled their ransom.

31. O guardian, your wealth outpaces
Any who would assault it, as if assailing enemies.

32. Let the poets speak little of you, for only
The attributes of your glory are true to its names - their validity.

33. Let this world treat gently one whose morning
Is adorned by him, and its evening - its morning and evening.