1. I yearn for your love to the point of longing
And the lightnings and thunderbolts excite you

2. When their rumblings roar we reckon
The clouds are rebuked by the bright rainbow

3. How long have I remained with the lightnings
And I am not recovered from my youth

4. I stood at their landmarks while my tears
Flowed and my heart was confined and freed

5. So my heart does not lament with burning
Nor do my tears refrain from flowing

6. I ask about my passion for people
Whose abode is Yamamah and al-Aqeeq

7. I bear what I can, and if they refuse
I bear of love what I cannot bear

8. And I have a heart aflame with yearning
And an eye wherein its tears are drowning

9. I fold it gently out of compassion
So memories shake it and it trembles

10. My heart takes the path of love
Though it feels too narrow for what it drew near

11. When I say, “I have avoided it,”
Its winding ways appear to me

12. The glances make me dream of languid eyes
And my youth is ruled by the slender, tall one

13. And mouths from which flows to my thirst
Musk, so it is saturated from their nectar

14. None knows whether it is wine I was given to drink
Or the nectar in their commingling

15. You who we loved, you forgot the sweet living
When you enjoyed our company

16. And days of concealed love you granted us
When living was easy and tender

17. I shed the wine of the cup generously
And the branch of our youth was fresh and tender

18. A cup passing round the companions has its setting
And in the cupbearer's hand its rising

19. It gratifies daybreak and intoxicates us
Till the hours of its joy make us heedless

20. As if the blossoms in the meadow spent the night
Made rosy for us by the aged wine

21. My friend, leave my censure, for my heart
Burns with the fire of my passions

22. And my tears upon their abode pour down
Flooding their grounds in streams

23. Shall I be patient, now night has departed
And the companions went their separate ways?

24. I hear from you what no enemy would utter
At dawn, nor would a friend speak it

25. I am not the insouciant, obsessed with his love
Nor the infatuated, impassioned youth

26. Not a meadow the cloud watered, but
Became fragrant, while blossoms bedecked it

27. The cheek of the rose flourished in it
Until the anemone was perfumed among its plants

28. And after the raindrops it exhaled a scent
Finer than what the copious rain emitted

29. With the most beautiful and delightful poetry
Cherished by people for its harmony

30. When I recite it, hearts find relief
From the stress of desolation and grief

31. My own poetry at every moment
Rivals the excellent compositions of a peer

32. It races ahead of other poems
Until they halt and falter and fail

33. How can it attain its goal, when in it
Is the well-aimed arrow that pierces hearts