1. Her phantom and her fragrance are excuses
When will fidelity suffice for you, though it is little?

2. Her visitation gleamed like flashing lightning
Misfortunes cried out to it, though they are insignificant

3. Its radiance dazzled, so an emaciated man reeled
And it passed; neither number nor interpretation remained

4. Do I censure, if her likeness in her absence
Resembles you? Absence is ugly, even coming from you, it is beautiful

5. You have her smile against mouths that have not
Healed the anguished lover’s sickness

6. The stature from the meadows of youth is bending
The eye from the leisure of bliss is sick

7. The waist has thinned, so its wrap still
Flutters, though the loincloth is not heavy

8. Be stern with indulgence, for as long as
Boredom attracts it, habit is its guide

9. Leave the slanderers, for everything they have adorned
Meaning with, interpretation will remove at the meeting

10. Beyond your brief union, its time
Is separation, however long the jealous one has made it

11. If a gathering before you had lasted, not tasting
The pain of parting, then Malik and Aqil would not have

12. If you turn away, then between us is an unknown path
To travelers on it, there is ringing and wailing

13. The winds blow violently on it, terrified
And for them, avoiding straying is difficult

14. I, the steed, and the wing of a dark night
And for me, if disgrace descends, departure is escape

15. So separation is more fragrant, and hopes are errors
If an era passes or a friend nears

16. The alienation of friends is ugly in the youth
But the cure for the betrayer is substitution

17. Thoughts that make me toss - if they have disturbed
A house, determination changes them

18. And my neck refused to be collared with a favor
Nobility built by prophets, glorious

19. The Psalms sung of his renowned virtue but neither
The Quran, Torah, nor Bible

20. From a people whose high-mindedness is a trait
And glory is soil and the stars a clan

21. Theirs is the Most High and the watcher from the ascension
By them the clouds poured forth their rain, beautiful

22. So I traveled, my soul brisk and free
Resolve resolved and the sword sharp

23. Can it incapacitate me, and the horizons are vast
In this spacious earth - my camp settled?

24. With odes the nights hardened and
From them, dawn and nightfall parted

25. If it neared a land, it looked
To another, as if staying there was dissolving

26. It let its trains flow in the Tigris and Euphrates
So the Nile swayed with yearning for it

27. And the son of Darimi, Abu Nadha, girded it
With reverence, glorification, and honor

28. It dyed its landmarks to its meadows
With reeds that Sidqim and Jadil grew

29. And how the letter carriers stammered for a quest
And the riders conferred - where does it incline?

30. So they stayed where glory is fresher and dew
Thicker, and the shade of favors is shady

31. And they pastured on the liveliness of spring, and around it
A neighbor with what hopes promise guarantor

32. And it attains the outcomes of affairs when it wishes
With pardon, though the opinions of men digress

33. And when the fray intensifies, the silent draw their veils
And the noble man’s secret is guarded by the sharp-tongued

34. Its spears crown the zeal of enemies
And its horses in their blood are bridled

35. The scales of its armor were spread from a body
That protects the truth while tongues babble

36. Alas! Time will never birth its equal
Time with its like is really stingy

37. So the guest, unless driven away from his gifts
And the neighbor, unless humbled by its harm, is disgraced

38. Toward its slopes, the necks of riders hastened their pace
Their journey heavy with the trinkets of affluence

39. It shone at the tune of a poet or visitor
And a murmur called, so a whinny responded

40. Wait! The stars do not come near for an ambitious one
In attaining them - is there a way to them?

41. And I sought the most high until I was certain
That the early strivers, their effort was misguidance

42. Woe to your time, which drips with saplings
And thrives in its shade, hopes

43. It is as if it were the cheeks' roses when modesty covered them
And almost melted them away with kisses

44. If not for its delay - and you have dignified it
Generously - inspiration would have flourished through its grace

45. Where is the distance, when you have reached the highest
Ranks, at which sight turns away, though it is tired

46. Their utmost limits have met and equaled
Until preferring one over the other became difficult