1. My complaint that Glory should complain sufficed me,
And the strokes of fate that I should weep sufficed.

2. I feign a heart that sighs with cracked breast,
And a moan brings forth tears flowing copiously.

3. How can I conceal myself from calamities when
I set out from the spring of water vociferously?

4. And here the nights accost me with their fullness -
Misfortunes - and I pass the nights woefully.

5. And the pangs of love wrap my wings
As calamities follow each other and see no tears healing.

6. It is guaranteed that they will see the heart throbbing
Throughout the nights or see the eye bloody.

7. And the purity of love and covenant between us
Would make me dislike drinking pure water.

8. How often the censurers criticized me ignorantly,
While the purpose refuses to obey the frivolities.

9. So I said to her, weeping is a solace
Whereby one who thought there'd be no union will be comforted.

10. Indeed, fate has demanded my youth
And my friends, for fate has demanded the fun.

11. I used to bestow praise while the abode was exile;
How then could I bestow elegy to it?

12. O our loved ones, have you ignored
My call at night’s command to answer the caller?

13. So I checked the complaint and released my tears,
And there I lowered my voice complaining.

14. And I magnified misfortunes to see patience gone
Behind the darkness of night and falling stars.

15. And though the club was empty of your smiles
It had been in the era of accord and gaiety.

16. Nothing was sweeter than that harvest’s requirement
Or better than those shots I took aim.

17. Nothing gave that age’s dawn a more fragrant scent
Or honored that company’s club more nobly.

18. An age that has passed, redolent with beauties,
Its nights almost pouring raging floods.

19. It passed and cast in my side a burning grief
With which I bewail, till dawn, the wailing nights.

20. As if I never enjoyed an eve of gaiety
Or turned the page of fate happily,

21. And never felt the wind blow fresh on the meadows
Melodiously, nor was rapturous at the singing birds.

22. You used to check on us in visits and hospitality
Scenting, as nights passed, with affection.

23. Is there then an averted meeting or greeting
With the caravan covering us or the specter passing by?

24. So here I am, with misfortunes striking a pact
Upon my chest and a heart between my sides harbored.

25. I yearn as the night whistles woefully
Melting the stones or splitting the hills.

26. And I let loose the vessels of tears lavishly
As my pact with the vessels of tears is to flood.

27. So I am not a daughter of Ayk * calling in the barrens,
Abandoned, calling out having lost my beloved.

28. And mourning a pact that fate decidedly ended
And a home at the folds of cleft ravines empty.

29. With choked breath, aroused passion,
And breaths kindling, dew overflowing.

30. Will someone then say to the Abode of Al-Ghada**
You were greeted in company with dusks, O valley?

31. And justify to Riyad’s basil*** a sick soul
Dewy at dawn or calm at night?

32. How often a charming scene of you energetically
Made me sway tipsily to kiss it eagerly!

33. And your bud-like mouth smiling
Made me not know which then bloomed.

34. Apart from the jewelry of that youth, a youth
I drew troubles with, and was not empty of.

35. And the truest love is love with yearning
That creeps to sketch out the dreams emptily,

36. And Najd’s breath blows thereby a delicate fragrance;
So the breath of Najd meets what it had met.

37. Tell the sly nights, is there a climber
Upon us, even if a specter you have watered, O nights?

38. And echo in these sands and grazing lands
The morning’s greeting to a love that hopes not for union.

39. I cannot relish water sweetening a thirsty man,
Nor enjoy shade cooling a hot one.

40. And if it weren’t for the safe conduct that justified me
To meet Ibn Zahr,**** I wouldn't have known wishes.

41. Brother of Glory, he did not decline from Najd, lodging
At a land, nor was haughty with pride loftily.

42. He takes refuge in the side of a lofty, smooth mountain
Sheltering you generously, bearing protection.

43. He sometimes faces the rain with his palm marching on,
And sometimes his coat faces the attacking lion.

44. And the High One seeks distance from him, with glorious white
Unsheathing, without glory, glorious white.*****

45. And he breaks it between a coat of mail and a shield
Even if the fury of his swords is Yemani. ******

46. Noble of noble parents, whom nobility sprouted,
Whose glories spread widely and sublimities.

47. He competes with the breeze in generosity,
And carries the lights of dawn in great deeds.

48. When we praise it we find
Our breasts adorned for the Highest and lowlands.

49. It sufficed his people, pridefully, that he was
Their highest end, and sufficed him that they set out.

50. He assumed a position in the ministry lofty
That the stars wished were their rising places.

51. And he gained, in another of the nights, merits
That are counted, by the measure of sublime things, most high.

52. With his perfections we shine a light on darkness,
And from them we ask rain for the lowlands.

53. I met him, and the night was flowing with his valor,
A brother of wisdom who doesn’t miss the mark.

54. And most wondrously he illuminates with eloquence,
And strikes the flint for quick-wittedness and intelligence.

55. So he collects between the water a smooth white chain
That flows, and between ember, a red-hot protector.

56. I yearn for him with the yearning of an estranged loved one
Who mentioned the water of Al-Udhah and its valleys. *******

57. So O you who is far with the star aspiring
And an orbit in the ministry towering!

58. You see the third of the intimate night from it flee
And you observe through it the second dawn. ********

59. Your tenderness in a soft moan complained of a burning sorrow
So it set out of longing for you the rhymes.

60. And with it saluted a scent more subtle than the garden,
And margins more gentle than the eastern breeze.

61. And from where I knew not, a missive lamented
Should I decorate? Or a tear I shed flowing?

62. You are the sweetest Euphrates in echo,
And though human, the gracious, generous hands.

63. Brother of dew, son of rectitude, and father of loftiness,
And your lineage in generosity is most high.