1. A flash gleamed at the top of the lightning bolts
So my heart was stirred with passion and closed

2. It illuminated for us and here its glare kindled
A burning passion in my ribs, scorching

3. Alas for him, the smiling and cheerful laugher
Who made worries fly from my eyes and deprived me of sleep

4. He renews an old longing for me, and so never
When lightning flashes is a shepherd unstirred with yearning

5. He makes me see her whenever my torment grows
And severs my bond with her and tears it apart

6. Her beauty and grace called me to her
And I was a respondent with attentive ears, head bowed

7. My heart refused, what with its passion for her,
To show patience, unless it should love and desire

8. Clinging to her in love, longing, and ceaselessly
Whether joined or parted, clinging to her

9. I have never sunset but with sunset he was at her side
Nor sunrise but with sunrise he was there

10. Of her wrapper, nothing gleamed white on her hips
Except what her anklet, held in place, had rubbed off

11. Her anklet controls the stirring of her leg
And she walked gracefully beneath her belted robe

12. A dark night whose moon is rising
On a lofty branch above a cluster of gum trees

13. Her saliva described the taste of a raincloud’s water
Mixed with camphor and aged wine

14. She was verdant and caroled at dawn while my tears
Remained by the ruins one day and were verdant

15. She laments while the zephyr blows, and whenever
The waving branch rose up, it would flap

16. He wept, so I poured tears from my tear ducts without
Restraining the outpouring of my tears at all

17. I see the cloud of my hopes approach and gather
Over me, then burst and not water me

18. How often its showers have disappointed me
And though its lightning flashed around me, forked

19. I have never sought to open any door of requests
And worked to open it except that it remained shut

20. I regretted the sin whose committing
I stayed up nights for, squandering my life

21. Since youth turned its back and parted from me
Releasing me to revels and freeing my bonds

22. It indulged me with all the wishes I harbored
And fattened my hopes toward it and poured them out sincerely

23. And were it not for the noble youth who succeeded
Yusuf would not have been brought together after separation

24. It elevated my status among all people and sprinkled me
With its attainments after I was destitute as beggars

25. It is the one I seek refuge with in the wide wilderness
Whenever the claws of tribulation tear violently

26. A king ruling justly, so that through his hands
Good fortune and calamity are dealt out in the land

27. No rank of all ranks has been reached
More famous than the sun at noon and more brilliant

28. No difficult goal of goals has it sought
And attempted without being the successful one

29. ‘Amr ibn HInd and Tubba‘ submit to it
As do Caesars in their grandeur and the Kasras of royal lineage

30. You see it from Mars loftier in rank
Than the sun at noon, more brilliant and luminous

31. A guarantor of God’s provision from its public treasury
So that whoever comes to it seeking sustenance will be provided for

32. A sword whose edge makes straight the slanting blows of events
Has set for it a limit, rectifying and loosening

33. Whenever fate casts it into perilous straits
It unsheathes itself in the breasts of knotty problems and cuts through

34. So never count as its equal a worthless man, but is there
A fly to contend with the towering falcon?

35. Is one ennobled whom old age has struck down or one
Whose bonds were cut by death before his prime?

36. Or did the days swear to you until it was as if
We had taken a binding oath from the days?

37. When my mounts have sped forth I praise you
Even if the envious blame me and babble

38. I thank you for your blessings which my enviers
Nearly burned up with jealousy at my attaining them

39. May what you possess of kingdoms endure
May the world endure for you and eternal survival endure for you