1. The complaint of love's anguish to the four friends
Lost in passion with no benefit

2. And how can one complain of the acts of love
When the ruins did not listen

3. So will that union return?
Or will the past life recur?

4. Or will the one whose voice startled me
At dawn when the dawn did not rise

5. His call scattered the gathering of love
If only the caller to departure had been lamented

6. Out of neglect of him, otherwise oh
If only the dawn call was not heard

7. What tears did not spill ardently?
What heart was it that did not split?

8. Oh home whose showers soaked
The abode continuously and did not stop

9. As if it remains in the home after the beloveds
And after the neighbors have departed, my tears

10. By God, from a fire of passion after them
My ribs moan from its sighs

11. And from a place I stood in which I bid
Them a painful farewell

12. And from a beloved who has spread misery
Across our grieving encampments

13. And a night I said, while my reproacher prolonged
Her blame in painful reproach

14. Blame me for my excessive love of them
If you wish, O reproacher, or leave me be

15. For I do not accept blame, and does
A lad unaware accept it from you?

16. This is a heart, after them, throbbing
And an eye, from the separation, did not sleep

17. And from a passion that said to his days
After the beloveds, do with me as you wish

18. For I have no comfort after them
No, and no hope in life

19. Lightning startles me when it flashes
Like an unsheathed sword upon the blades

20. So sleep is disturbed by its flashes
And the eyelids are averted from the bed

21. And it sings to him above the cooking pots
The cooing of doves sobbing sadly

22. Moaning in the nests, displaying a grief
The secret passion stored within

23. And it recalls the covenant, fearing for
The compartments of a heart infatuated with them

24. What is mine, and for the ruins I weep
Over the traces of their crumbling encampments

25. And I recite poems in quatrains
I quench their thirst for longing with drink

26. Poetry tomorrow like soft water
Without it, sorrow did not flow

27. From it I compose every caravan song
Recited in an abode and an assembly

28. When the reciter intones it, it folds
The divergence of the desert with the forearms

29. Bearing it while it is delicate
Of step yet swift of foot

30. Essence of diction the prohibition
Indicated towards it with the finger

31. What word in it is not coveted
And what merit in it was not attained?