1. The passions of love - how much does absence need to rage!
A bosom untouched by love's pangs - love has not melted it.

2. For a time it knew not what love was,
Until veils and face-covers drew him in.

3. Eyes shot him down though aiming elsewhere;
The archers who launched at him their glances' arrows.

4. Eyes whose tears are promises - swords from their glances flash;
While those Babylonian eyes promise nothing.

5. When the caravan appeared, I said to my companion,
"For some matter has the caravan appeared in its grazing grounds."

6. But no sooner said than my heart was captive
By passion's decree - it was seduced and plundered.

7. To God I complain of a love when it wanes,
Its fading fires flare up, it cannot be concealed.

8. Of a neighbourhood whose people decamped - after them
I remain, my body without the heart that went with them.

9. Of tears whose flooding torrents did not exhaust
Their spring, but flowed long - after they went the spring flowed on.

10. When she lets fall those tears in her pastures,
The cheeks' fresh down is envied by cascades from her eyes.

11. In my mind visions pour like pearls still moist
With the essence of those who once dwelt there.

12. Absence, though I committed no crime, was harsher
After the encampment - more cruel than sweet presence had been kind.

13. My heart - how madness makes it rave and pine
For their nights in that land! How it yearns and burns!

14. How it laments the hardship of parting - and then
Protests that leave-taking and absence from them was mere child's play!

15. It chafes at the pace of one distraught for a folk who folded
Their tents and the red camels bore them away.

16. Weeping, his tears like clouds, he amazed
The land with the flood pouring from his streaming eyes.

17. Crossing the land's dust in his craving, he made
The dust turn to musk when they had gone from it.

18. He looked on those deserted encampments,
Untroubled by temple or wide hall where they dwelt.

19. He saw it empty of its people, his tears upon it
Fresh as the day they bubbled up from his lids.

20. Why did they abandon us, move on?
Modesty and veiling might have been enough!

21. I blame them whatever state I am in,
While for me, whatever my state, they have rebukes.

22. My lover saddles me with sins I never committed,
As they claimed - mere absence and remoteness are no crimes!

23. Oh, will I ever see their camping grounds again
After they struck their tents and loaded their camels?

24. Will every traveller call on me, will the distances shrink?
Alike to him whether remote or near I dwell?

25. When the winds and the breezes race out to the horizon's edge,
Capturing the gazelles that flee them but cannot escape,

26. My camel feeds from them at every task,
And I, when I have need, find them a meadow.

27. The winds blow, the breezes fan his heels
To where they cannot reach, no matter how they pursue.

28. Then absence turns to presence, plains close
As the passes are folded back by his treading their bends.

29. Among the boughs a raven of Ayka wounds me,
Swaying gracefully, the twigs pliant to its lovely singing.

30. It moans though dawn's face gleams radiant,
Saying to night's slumberers, "Rouse yourselves!"

31. I've seen none love like me, nor one so true
As my love - we surpassed all with our patience.

32. A love - when I say it's finished, I see
It's folk pitching their tents - a grueling task.

33. Lightning flashes while night still spreads its cloak,
Flickering in the distance like an unsheathed sword.

34. I stayed awake following its flashes
Till the meteors inclined to the west from their eastern rising.

35. If I compose poetry my utterance rambles,
Meandering, bewildered, with no limitations or reserve.

36. All other poetry is mere prattle;
This poetry surpasses all that idle babble.

37. It makes the wise ecstatic for love when sung,
Spurning known goals, spurring the camel-riders on.