1. O my intimate friend, I have made you the judge
Of what occurred yesterday between you and me

2. On the condition that if one rejects your judgment
You will find me accepting your judgment, pleased

3. I ransom you - and the people whom you see
When the inevitable must be ransomed, ransoming myself

4. Is it good manners that you grace your feet while leaving me
To walk barefoot on thorns?

5. You drink from my palm a deadly draught
While I drink from you that which increases my thirst

6. Did you not see me turn my wretched faces to you
Leaving comfort behind me?

7. Faces of loved ones have changed for me
Into faces of men to be guarded against as enemies

8. And pieces of my heart that melt over them
Beyond my tears, a fragment of my innermost being

9. Hardship and harm have their way with them
While it would be disgraceful if I attained my wants from you

10. And if an incident you brought upon me - if it were
With consent, its sides would cling in disgrace

11. The high-born would avert their eyes for it
And conceal it behind their eyelids in denial

12. And suppose it did not come from you, but rather
I was struck by it by one incapacitated by God, an archer

13. Then why did you disregard me in my tribulation
And scorn me in that circumstance in my abasement?

14. My resignation to it and acquiescence
Is from shame before it and excess modesty

15. It casts my modesty back at Ibn Al-'Aasim
And clothes my honor in disgrace in that dishonor

16. Do not claim - and your word is truth - that I have changed
My affection or altered my praise

17. God has cast my affection far in great distance
And brought near a man who was not intimate in friendship

18. A curse be upon myself to prove my oath
While you escape safe from my curses

19. And I conceal something shameful and arduous for the soul
From people, while I suppress it inwardly

20. I endure so I do not complain, and if for an hour
My tongue started to complain, I would cut out my tongue

21. Divorce and return after a time to my affection
You will find it as abundant as it was after much divorce

22. May God water you with bitterness while alive, and I
Have implored Him for that, for my shyness

23. They have set me free to every undesirable thing
And spared me harm passing through my door

24. Their enmity is nearness and their poverty is riches
Filling my right hand with it and my left

25. So O son of loftiness, they have taken thrift and wealth
Anew for their neighbor, a burden and an affliction

26.
When a door is closed before permission for some reason

27. And the guests' call continues plaintively
They removed that drowsiness and proclaimed

28. At its doors the callers' voices, beckoning
I caution you not to waver while I remain firm,

29. Or to be dishonest while I am true
Or approach while you distance in the morning,