1. With my steed I roamed Burey's ruins,
Seeking past joys and gladness.

2. Let it pause there and gaze for me,
No longing stirs me for that site.

3. Let it crop the meadow there, for in
Crossing, the scent of flowers spreads.

4. Bear to me the fragrance of those blooms—
It will revive my buried sweet aroma.

5. My tears made my cheek no thoroughfare
Save for my passing and crossing by.

6. Would the spring rain not water my abode
If I did not dwell in its rainy quarter?

7. Can I return to those homes, my soul
Calmed and sighing's excess curbed?

8. Could the flood of tears thus stem the flow,
Erasing my dark-rimmed eyes and conscience?

9. Remembrance makes me weep like a girl
For them, young and old.

10. My little love is for their youngest girl
Great longing for their eldest.

11. Of modest glance, excelling in piety
And religion, her train sweeps the ground.

12. A bending branch, her tresses spilled
On its boughs, rustled by the gentle breeze.

13. My wound is strong, my break never mended;
At his hands I'm eternally crushed.

14. Radiant brow—though he shows you but glimpses
From beneath his veil, drunk with wine.

15. I'm happiest when they visit me,
My soul and early rising spurred.

16. As for boon friends of noble company,
Arms bared, daring in their crossing.

17. If my feast day comes early for them,
The dove takes wing on high.

18. Bringing them timely, never tardy,
Till the rite's done with sacrifice.

19. I'll swiftly send messages, ply ships
Over the vast oceans' breadths.

20. I'll fling my hot tears toward them,
Burning in love and sighing's heat.

21. May the veil's removal lead me to one
Sheltered in a litter's recesses.

22. Then I'll shed the burdens of secrets
And rest my steed and camel.

23. If so, what fortune smiles on me!
My hopes fruit and blessings teem.

24. When the timid shun visiting, falsely
Claiming love, their words untrue,

25. I'll dare my precious soul in yearning
For that wild doe I met out there.

26. If sloth keeps me from it, no arrow
Winged with longing feathers will shoot.

27. No eyes of maidens will I enjoy
If a meeting's missed with them.

28. O you whose books I daily send their way
When my journey tires me!

29. I say, apologizing, when I dispatch them
Want doesn't void obligation's duty.

30. Think not in black ink they were writ
But in the black of my tears' traces.

31. One who can't bear a single day apart,
How can he after months endure?

32. Ah, few are my sighs at first parting,
But soon I'm mad with sorrow!

33. I wasn't meant to tread the alley
Of a knight, sniffing at their walls and homes.

34. Far from it! Not all Shiraz can compare
To their gifts and boons I knew.

35. A land whose winter and summer equal
The blessed and deprived in bounty.

36. It matched the comfort of the cozy rich
And the shivering poor it warmed.

37. Sustenance comes easily to all there,
Not grudgingly from its Giver.

38. Beggar and spendthrift, rich and poor,
Their living's equal, bounty alike.

39. Wherever we pitch camp, it's as if
We're in a garden, pools and greenery.

40. A place whose springtime beauty
Can't be matched, dawning and light unmatched,

41. A meadow whose flowers' stars
Are like scripture leaves between lines and verses.

42. To the passing breeze it freely yields
Brochures of satin and silk furnishings.

43. The clouds write their prose and verse upon it,
Raining the rhymed and free.

44. The water flows bound and unbound,
Extended and controlled.

45. It arrests hearing with tumbling
Between chuckling and murmuring.

46. Its nightingales recite gospel leaves
And psalms' scripture to you.

47. When it casts your sorrows away
With whistling, it soothes with murmuring,

48. Till needing neither lute nor flute,
Content with only them.

49. As if Qays and Jarir sang their poems there,
Making music by their verses.

50. Nothing is lovelier than it at dawn,
The sun a crystal shard.

51. When clouds come you see a tent of silk
Veiled in smoke of incense.

52. No fault but its pools allow pigs and dogs—
Forbidden fruit—to drink.

53. A paradise whose bounty, if apportioned
Between believers and rejecters of truth!

54. These are its traits, and how my hands
Cling to friends and family ties!

55. Trustworthy with my secrets, and ready
To help when calamity strikes.

56. O most generous land, so my brothers
Sheltered there, hosted me kindly!

57. Would that those roaming freely there
Cut their bonds and leave in peace.