سل وجهه البدري عدل كماله

في مقلتي العبرى وقلبي الوالهِ

Ask his full-moon face about the justice of its perfection

toward my tearful eye and my love-bewildered heart.

أوفاق عني قوس حاجبه فلي

كبد أمام النزع من نبالهِ

Or turn his eyebrow’s bow away from me [reading uncertain], for I have

a liver exposed to the arrows he draws.

ألمى رشيق القدّ أرجو الري من

معسوله وأخاف من عسّالهِ

Dark-lipped, slender of stature—I hope to slake my thirst with

his honeyed mouth, and I fear his quivering spear.

أعديتُ شجواً ربعه فالبان في

سكراته والورقُ في أغلالهِ

I infected his abode with sorrow; the bān trees are in

its death throes, and the doves in its fetters.

وحملت مثل الرّدف عنه غيرةً

لما رأيت الخصرَ حلف هُزالهِ

And I bore for him jealousy as heavy as his buttocks,

when I saw his waist a sworn ally of his leanness.

قم فاستعر لي من حليّ رقدةً

فهي الوسيلة عند طيف خيالهِ

Rise, and borrow me a spell of sleep from one free of care [reading uncertain],

for sleep is the means of reaching the phantom of his image.

وإذا رقدت فليس إلاّ فكرتي

لا الحلم جاد به ولا بمثالهِ

And when I sleep, it is only my own imagining;

no dream has bestowed him on me, nor even his likeness.

يا ملبس التفتير رايةَ لحظه

ودليل قطع السيف لمع ذُبالهِ

O you who clothe languor in the banner of his glance,

and a sword’s cutting power is proved by the gleam of its point [reading uncertain].

عطفاً على دنفٍ دعوت همومه

فأقمتها وقعدتَ عن آمالهِ

Have pity on an ailing lover whose sorrows you summoned:

so you made them rise, yet sat back from fulfilling his hopes.

قلقُ المضاجع لو لقيت أقل ما

يلقى لما استحسنت سيئ حالهِ

Restless upon his beds—if you suffered the least of what

he suffers, you would not find his wretched state pleasing.