1. This parting and these sighs,
Is it not yet time for tears to flow?

2. Alas, your tears are but the ways of passion,
A body melting, and tears pouring forth unrestrained,

3. If you do not shed them generously like 'aqeeq,
Then all your efforts in love are futile and vain,

4. If you are saving your tears for the day they leave,
Then now is the time, for parting has occurred and they are gone,

5. What you had feared has now come to pass,
So it is apt for you now to restrain yourself no more,

6. The excuse of the lovelorn that in his heart is fire,
While between his eyelids rages a flood,

7. Speak out what your tears have held of sorrow,
For you stand now with proof of love’s command,

8. This sickness in your soul bears witness,
Justice itself, so what use is there in concealment?

9. Sighs assail your heart whenever the singer,
Trills gently in the melodious tones of al-Ghada,

10. And his form arouses your passion for the loved ones,
As grazing deer stir the dormant mountain,

11. It would have been enough for you when at the parting
A mere gesture hinted that you should remain patient,

12. But without your loved ones the like of them for you
Are but hands and fading glances and teeth white as hailstones,

13. The white have, below the white, a likeness,
As the dusky have, below the dusky, a disparity,

14. From every one imprisoned by her wrists, you imagine her
A lion taking refuge in the grasp of a writhing serpent,

15. Brandishing, while the sword is held ready in his hand,
As though her palm were his home country,

16. God reward you, gazelles of the protected land,
Waterers of life itself while time endures,

17. How much pure unfading pearl have we scattered from our mouths for you,
Whose shells are ears that listen,

18. A secret – and were it not for the meagerness of our tongues regarding it,
The dunes would have danced joyously because of it,

19. And the heart of a darkened ruin I traversed seeking you,
My endeavor and the edge of my wing bones wear me out,

20. No feet advance into it one step running,
Nor can any eye penetrate its darkness,

21. While my companion spurred on the delusions
To the excitement of death in its ravines,

22. Until I attained an exalted peak overlooking
No human in its expanse but the human,

23. Lofty, from whose edges the insects fall away,
And below whose skies the eagles cannot fly,

24. I wept for the lack of fellow sojourners and so became
Whatever the hands had generously bestowed,

25. And I sipped the sweet reconciliation as though
Fresh butter had been poured on it and fermenting dates.