1. My heart from the frail side is frail
If only he to whom I complain is kind

2. The breeze with its breeze makes me miserable
Why doesn't the breeze make me happy with its breeze

3. From her face is ever daylight
From her branch is night over which stars keep vigil

4. If she turns her face the full moon shines and if she walks
The bough stirs and if she sings the wild cows moo

5. My eyes enjoyed her so her torment was prolonged
And how much torment does pleasure hide

6. She glanced at me and aimed at my heart with her arrow
Then she inclined towards me and I almost swooned

7. Woe to me if she looks and woe if she turns away
The arrows strike as she draws them out, painfully

8. And when her eyesapproach mine beneath my eyes
But the two glances were fleeting and momentary

9. And when calamity comes from a single foe
One who was no foe becomes like a foe

10. O you who legitimize shedding my blood, unlawful to spill
Legitimacy and prohibition were not just

11. They who endowed the likes of you, O family of Wahb
With sublime nobility, were generous

12. And if there comes a time your equals are born
Time with your equals would be barren

13. You will see your questioner has more right to your wealth
Than some of you, until it is said he is covetous

14. And your exclusivity and intimacy will be dissolved
Until it is said they were confidants

15. How many formidable among you are provoked
By the oppression of the black though he be forbearing

16. And how many deceitful, who when asked seem
Ignorant, and yet are wise

17. And how many listless toward every wrong
With the persistence of a fool, and yet he is knowing

18. Of those whom nature built his canal
Not those who built the canal through discipline

19. God's command concerning you, which if it were
A man, men would call him comely

20. Without any growth or diminishment
And accord him immortality and esteem

21. How much you keep silent about one you befriend
To belittle him though he be momentous

22. And God magnifies the worth of a boon to you
You did not esteem though it be tremendous

23. And God sends me against you. Truly I
Lead the discreet who keep hidden affairs

24. Your maligning what you hide from us is enough
For the chaste and silent spy