سواي الذي ترمي المطامع نبله

وغيري من بالحرص يسهل ذله

It is another, not I, whose nobility ambitions assail;

and another whose abasement greed makes easy.

ولو كنت ممن تقبل الضيم نفسه

لجنبت هجري من منى النفس وصله

And had I been one whose soul accepts indignity,

I would not have forsaken the one my soul longs to join.

هوى سمت قلبي أن يطاوع حكمه

فبادرني قبل العواذل عذله

I bade my heart obey a passion's rule,

but its reproach reached me before the reproving women's.

توهمني كالعاشقين يروعني

تجنبه أو يغتال جدي هزله

He imagined me like other lovers, frightened

by his shunning, or my earnestness slain by his jesting.

وإني لألقاه بسلوةِ زاهدٍ

وفي يده عقد الفؤاد وحله

Yet I do meet him with an ascetic's detachment,

while in his hand lie the heart's binding and unbinding.

أصارف طرفي في تأمل حسنه

واسخط ما يرضي سواي أقله

I contend with my gaze as I contemplate his beauty,

and resent what would content another even in its smallest share.

ولا خير فيمن يملك الحب رأيه

وإن ملك القلب المتيم حبله

And there is no good in one whose judgment love controls,

even if its tether holds sway over the love-enslaved heart.