1. The evening we kneaded the dough,
We cried over the abode’s faded features.

2. We stood there and how many tears poured
For what stirred our weeping doves.

3. My heart, how it is provoked
By the soft, delicate branches.

4. It is amazed by the radiance of the full moons
That show between the smiles.

5. It yearns for the maidens of Sala', when they appear
Swaying from the passing of the gentle winds.

6. Watered by the spring rain, every rumbling cloud
Gentle with the melody of the viols or hushing rains.

7. Until you see the meadow adorned
As the hand of the drawer adorned it with henna.

8. The clouds greeted its tree branches
Like clashing waves.

9. When the winds stirred them, their flowers fell
Like coins onto its dust.

10. God has tested my heart - how it longs
For the camp, and its people missed like a loving doe.

11. Woe for Layla does not fade, as if
Affliction has struck and clung to him.

12. And what pained me were her words one day between us
When my heart felt like the sting of arrows.

13. "I see that when we are far apart
You return to professing secret passions unrestrained."

14. So I said, "Nobility and propriety refuse
To publicize our secret when morals are regarded."

15. "If you were present on the day of separation, O passion's captive,
You would denounce blamers like lovers do.

16. You would witness - what you would witness! - a stance towards separation
That makes great calamities seem easy."

17. Their mounts have traveled from that abode
Towards the plains and groves.

18. So many a mouth longing as they traveled at dawn,
Kissing the ruins of the dwellings.

19. So many a cooing dove met separation and its horror
With its beak, though compelled to part.

20. So many a wrist poured out tears
And another over its bowels and braids.

21. If only the mounts, when they left the encampment
And ventured the saddened course,

22. Were lamed, unable to race in the wilderness,
Nor aided it to graze, withholding the rain.

23. Rather, they wandered destitute in the desert,
Their joints weakened by the harsh terrain.

24. If only this separation were of kinds
Repelled by the zeal of the lofty, or wills of the resolute.

25. We would drive it back with noble steeds
Charging with the horsemen in the fray -

26. Upon them men who shine brighter whenever
The plain is darkened by the white swords.

27. When dressed in battle gear, you see them stoic
Walking to their death, stripping off armor.

28. Obeyed on the day of horror whenever
Death appears blood-red amidst the crushing.

29. When they pelt the forepart of the army with spears
The tight deadlock is relieved.

30. Lions when the dens of Bisha are stirred up,
I would meet them with the same lions.

31. They are war's singing maidens; the horses stumble beneath them
When they unsheathe their swords at the skulls.

32. They sang my praises, for in war whenever its fulcrum turned,
My resolve took the place of poles.

33. And in the arena of poetry, its leading competitor
Is the one I have transcended, rising above the rival.

34. And above every critic whose poetry wares,
When displayed, do not succeed in bartering.

35. It pains him that he returns with his compositions,
Learned, after being battered by one ignorant.

36. He has insights blurred by rancor
Indicating the defects he harbors.

37. What virtue in donning turbans is a stigma?
What knowledge confined to those who don cowls?

38. When they hear it sincerely, their fortune
Is envious loathing, bites of the uninformed.

39. They do not benefit from what they hear
As if I had recited it to beasts.