1. How much did my youth and passion forbid me
From blame, yet they did not cease from blame.

2. They became drunk with the inebriation of wine and thought
The intoxication of love was like the intoxication of wine

3. So beware of a sigh whose fires, O blamer,
Have flared up intensely.

4. It burned my blamers before you until
They became a paradise free from blamers.

5. Such is the work of the fire of hearts, besides bodies—
So how would it be in bodies?

6. It is the fire of Khalil in the kindling, but
It differed from it in its coolness and safety.

7. O people of love, the battlefield of the war of separation
My cheek is an ocean of spilt blood.

8. The stance of separation is like the sky in which
You see pouring eyes like clouds

9. And eyes shedding tears upon it
Like confronting waves against rocks.

10. The blame of Damascus had been my way
Until Damascus in Syria forbade me from it.

11. A land whose inhabitants have made
Paradise, before the Reckoning, a land of stay.

12. The days have given it the polish of beauty
That does not vanish, even with days.

13. Its external beauty is apparent, just as
Its inner self—both created perfect.

14. Except that spring rules the external
As it was the clearest of rulers.

15. With gardens whose traits are forever
Blossoming, you see them as the blossoming of perceptions.

16. The rain's hand scattered its freshness upon it
So its flowers are arranged in harmony.

17. The garden of eternity was not preferred over it in fragrance
But it was preferred in permanence.

18. It divided between its inhabitants the division of justice
So the hand of the Just Apportioner encompassed them.

19. An ambition whose only concern is ascendance
Never slackening from that, busy with resolve.

20. And a fame whose mention rises to
The fortunate stars it has set out to.

21. Determined in will every age, though long,
When a proclaimer signals its expiration.

22. And thus glory cannot be forfeited from it
By the transgressions of enemies without swords.

23. The turns of fate disputed me, towards it
And saw me as the fiercest disputant.

24. With a youth whose palms, since generosity vanished,
We had a rest from annihilation.