1. Is this beneath the veil the cheek,
Or the tender bud, red and fresh?

2. Is this a dawn or from your mouth shone
The folds, or a pearl the necklace embraced?

3. Is your saliva water of wine, mixed
With camphor, or is it your saliva, honey?

4. That which in the breast has perfect shape,
Is it true, ivory, or is that the breast?

5. Shy before the slender, bending
When the slender sways in its tresses.

6. My life is a gift to me, allow me
A kiss, hot and cold, from the mouth.

7. For me, life is but your company and joy,
Death is but your disdain and rejection.

8. You have exposed me to torment my passion,
Though the greatest sin, whenever the scabbard stirs.

9. I have roasted my flesh in passion, and my blood too,
Only the hide remains intact upon it.

10. May God protect you, and the stance
We enjoyed yesterday, O Hind, O Hind.

11. In the morning we complain of our passion,
And our hearts melted, as passion stirred within.

12. When we are the steeds of passion, in us
Its teeth are long, biting and growing.

13. Tell me, is it not ‘Aniza’s hillside?
Is it not the furthest lightning? Not the lone flag?

14. Have you a pact with the mixed horde and the allies?
We had a pact with them that no pact can uphold.

15. Who will take me to a valley, below the bend of Luwa,
Where partridges cower, and wild cows, and ostriches?

16. Where the bustard wanders, sweeping the ground,
And ibexes graze along its brink, the ostriches.

17. The gazelles were severed, O soft Morada,
By their mouths, where the lotus had blossomed.

18. Oh, how this life knocks upon my steadfastness,
With events no rock or boulder can withstand!

19. When from it shone a lightning, or thunder rumbled,
Even the rumbling thunder could not verify the thunder.

20. So I gained no request from its changing decree,
And tempting it, but its opposite came to me.

21. And I awoke among wrongdoing folk and a people
Whose eyes from righteousness and kindness are blind.

22. And even if they gained riches and fortune,
In the essence of my reason, as long as I live, there is asceticism.

23. When wealth settles with someone due to his merit,
From his manners, greedily, it is met with ingratitude.

24. Indeed God, the All-Victorious, was granted victory over the foe,
The morn the two armies met in battle, army against army.

25. He lashed the transgressing rebels in their rebellion,
With a just state, no pact can make it desist.

26. He threatened them from afar until he came upon them,
Nor did the distance hinder him from stepping on their land.

27. And he marched with a dam of armies, so if
He dammed Gog and Magog with it, the dam would melt.

28. And he charged a foaming sea for his army,
Spilling over them from its edges, horsemen.

29. And it was shaped into coats of mail and gathered
By the hands of the champions of war, white and flexible.

30. And the earth's expanses under his steeds
Were said to be by the zebras' might, the lion pink.

31. Beware, O you who suppose, in their view
That minarets totter and high pillars moan.

32. Fear a terrible onslaught against the lowly, when
What the honorable lion has secured is undone.

33. For in his peace and his war, you have
Two paths, diverging, misguidance and righteousness.

34. He is the sea except that his bounty is eternal,
And slave nor freeman differ regarding his bounty.

35. Fortune aids him in all he desires,
And in his kingdom, fortune and misfortune serve him.

36. The sun of glories, for whom is
The banner of praise, over land and glory.

37. No command does he decree, nor prohibition,
But in you for it is grace and praise.