1. I turned to you, my foolishness exposing me,
And mocking my youth and greying hair.

2. It drags the oil from my lamp,
And chokes what fire I knew.

3. I offered you fruit and a spring,
Yet I do not eat nor drink.

4. Because of my excessive love for you
Damascus embraces me and is merciful to me.

5. And I, though strangeness is my nature,
Am infatuated with the strange and wondrous.

6. When I am passionate for you in sorrow,
Some of that sorrow is the nature of passion.

7. It makes a teardrop dance a true promise,
Then turns it to a false one.

8. It brings the night alive expecting morning from it,
Yet it has only a false dawn.

9. And I have not seen in troubles one opposite
Lead to an opposing, different opposite.

10. I despaired over wavering visions
That descended on me in a barren wasteland.

11. And the echo returning from my memories
Like lightning’s flutter in thick clouds.

12. One remains, however many times
The days of life miss their mark.

13. As if life trickles from a vessel
With a deep abyss and porous holes.

14. How beautiful life would be if its playgrounds
Rested from strange, odd falsities,

15. From sure perdition
Where evil is despised in ruinous ways.

16. How I yearn for the rising sun,
With the night stars hiding from it when it sets.

17. How miserable is the gazelle that does not frolic,
Fearing the days for their piercing stabs.

18. My loved ones in whom worries of the soul
Are relieved in time of hardship.

19. God’s peace be upon you, branches
That flutter over fertile meadows.

20. And over houses trails of youth’s morning
With scented robes have flowed from you.

21. And doves roused by you then sang
On an evening, benign and pouring.

22. For the elite of boon companions, your cheers
With sweet memories and answering voice.

23. And caring ones, as the hand of a doctor
Tenderly touches the pulse of an ailing patient.

24. You have breathed in me a new spirit,
And unveiled my gloomy face.

25. And I have returned by your grace, my ardour
Cooled for the embers of my fervent youth.

26. And I come with thanks, though the hand that rewards
Has been forestalled by the hand that gives favour.

27. I deterred my soul from drowning in its passions
And drowning in blaming and accusation.

28. And tempted by fleeting joys which are death,
As the moth is tempted by the flame.

29. And I said: Your warning is that nothing remains
Of the scars on your heart from past wounds.

30. It is enough, from what I have endured, for you to refrain
From slow death, and repent.

31. It said: I will not repent, for in Damascus
Is a love for whom I pray and who warms me.

32. Grant me the repentance from the dalliances of days
When the meadow of my youth was fresh.

33. How can I repent the burning embers of a passion
For you as you walk proud in your grey hair?

34. And dark-eyed, slender youths who appeared
With the pride of youth on their brows.

35. Repent? When you have paved my path
And I have lost the crossroads.

36. And for what is in me of lapses and sins
Your sweet poem intercedes as advocate.

37. Poetry absolves sins
And erases faults.

38. Send me a breath of Damascus’ breeze,
Pour in my cup and bowl.

39. Blow over me gently, ascending
The sighs of the soul heralding its storm.

40. Leave softly murmuring words flowing
Over my lips like the creeping of ants.

41. Untie the knot binding my tongue
Though I am neither steadfast nor serene.

42. Grant me the perfume of your gentle breath,
Worthy of Andalusia’s fresh branch.

43. My lady Nujah, to you I dedicate success,
Greetings from the writer to the writer.

44. To the refined flower of literature
Who flourishes in the fertile garden of the mind.

45. My lady Nujah, and you know
What makes hearts open to hearts.

46. I recognized your great virtue from afar
And sensed your noble generosity up close.

47. I matched hearing with seeing
And joined awe with reverence.

48. So you became where virtues conjoin,
Refined yet solemn and revered.

49. My lady, each proper person is content
With whatever fate apportions.

50. And each one whose brother parts from him,
And every shining star heads toward setting.

51. To you I fled, and you drove me away
To the edge of a precipice, frightening and alarmed.

52. You have been excessive in kindness
As if wanting me to escape.

53. And I hope to return, though fearful
Of what state you will be in when you return.

54. You have remained, never ceasing to be a beacon of glory,
A pillar of guidance, pride of the righteous.