1. The ache of parting tortures me,
so is there a cure for my malady?

2. My heart fears the turn of fate,
and the departure of loved ones agitates me.

3. My eyelids have wept copious tears
upon my pale, sleepless cheeks.

4. Neither sleep returns, nor their specters,
after separation and distance have torn us apart.

5. The dwellings where they once lived
now renew my sorrow and agony.

6. Remembrance and longing burn my ribs,
weakening them, and stir my passions.

7. And four miseries torture the lovesick one:
memories disturb him, and he yearns.

8. And a standstill, though it inflames
the lethal poison of the days of separation.

9. Those who have left can never be forgotten,
after they marched off from Nejd, departing.

10. No more do they care for me after they
unleashed for separation claps and flashes of lightning.

11. And they raced off, every one
with her belongings, text, and she-camel.

12. And each departed friend we pelted
with the dust of the dunes―he took the lead!

13. For him, behind the tribe, the
young camels sauntered easily with swaying lithe necks.

14. Can my heart hope, when
it has marched off with the emaciated camels?

15. Emaciated camels rose to our passions
after their remoteness brought them to market.

16. And the souls of lovers after their leave-taking
were the remnants left among them.

17. They tasted of lovesickness and its causes
after the parting of neighbors like none before.

18. The brows of the gazelles were unkind
in beauty before the day of flooding.

19. How often they wreaked havoc on their lovers,
from them: perdition and downcast eyes!

20. And love is an illness which once
afflicted lovers and the passionate.

21. Sweethearts whose society
once illuminated it with the light of the tribe.

22. Downpours of tears, when they intended
to depart from the abode, weeping parted.

23. They broke their vow to me―but who
has a vow or pact not betrayed?

24. Like doves in the valley of Ghada
whose song would shame even the clearest voice.

25. Their lamenting sets my liver aflame
whenever they coo upon the branches.

26. As if they were lovesick creatures veiled
among the leaves by the foliage.

27. One day when the pain of parting
overwhelmed me with unbearable exhaustion.

28. Not even pure musk, which perfumers
and scent-merchants love,

29. Exhales its perfume, which the
flirtatious breeze then conveys.

30. One day like my poems, which were scented
and spread through lands and horizons.

31. With his composition in the layers of melody,
a hand, and in prosody, well-constructed.