1. O fairest of people, if attaining you
Were not difficult for one who seeks ease,

2. Your magic would guide the seeker to you,
And your heart would be tender to the complainer.

3. Do you remember, as I have not forgotten the covenant between us,
Though the memory of a dear one may persist.

4. Say to her whose processions have departed,
As the journey has made them drunk with separation:

5. I wish I were, with my clothes and my mount,
A slave this year for your family, hired.

6. For you have delayed, without need,
Our pilgrimage at the prescribed time.

7. What is with you, that my covenant and yours
Are two intimates with no discord between us?

8. So your share of it was a glance
That made a man of your eye, till he saw nothing.

9. Was I stingy with one whose trysts
Were owed till a hoped for, expected term?

10. I have looked, and found none but the longing
That only begins with the looking.

11. It has left an anguish for you that will not be forgotten,
And a burning in the blackness of the heart unfelt by mortals,

12. A jinn-maid, or one who has taught her
To shoot hearts with a bowstring lacking bow.

13. She came in the stinging cold, the wrap
Clinging to the litter's embroidered edges.

14. Cheeks soft with plentitude, her bracelets
Measuring out neither too long nor too short her sleeve.

15. When her reassuring sides deceived her mantle,
You saw loincloths and sarongs within.

16. When the wind blew, she swayed gently, inhaling,
Like the playing of the bowed lute-string.

17. Dazzling white, as she went forth in the pilgrimage
On the night of the eleventh moon.

18. Only a messenger, when she appears, can convey
On our behalf, and if she is inclined, make peace between us.

19. In the throes of passion I have gained from her
A sign, though from my passion I gained no triumph.

20. The slain on the day we met, my blood shed
For her and for whom she sheltered safe from my blood.

21. You decide my fate, while I do not decide yours,
As the king decides the fate of the slave he subjugates.

22. If one of rank gives you an unrequired gift from me
And makes me powerless, how unjust is fate!