1. O dweller of that quarter, show mercy to the lovesick me,
Perhaps your love will have mercy upon me,

2. Do not think the rain that fell on your homes,
Was anything but tears from my eyelids,

3. Oh woe is my life, it grew old and passed,
Yet I haven’t fulfilled my debts to you,

4. My heart is held hostage by you, so by your right,
Allow me to retrieve my pawned heart,

5. What business do I and my critics have in loving you,
How much they pelt me with blame and reproach!

6. I beg you, do not listen to the words of my critics about you,
Their aim is just to distort me,

7. Oh how they murder me, those critics!
With their blame they only deceive me,

8. How can I be crooked or pretend so,
When I am upon the soundest and straightest religion,

9. By your lives I swear, I am poor in your love,
And for you I have outstretched my hand,

10. I am wasted away in loving you, so return to me, and if
Meeting you is difficult, make it easy and bring me back,

11. First, grant my eyes some sleep, perhaps
I will slumber and your image will come to me,

12. Or how can sleep come upon me, and my eyelids
Graze upon wakefulness, while my eyes brim with tears?

13. If my murder by rejection pleases you,
Then whatever pleases you, also pleases me,

14. My love I have sold to you, I make no claims,
Of loss in this sale of the shortchanged,

15. In passion I am the brother of Majnun Layla,
At times, and at times the brother of Qays the obsessed,

16. O men, perhaps the exaltedness of your love,
Can cure me of this passion with its flames,

17. For I am enchanted by the languor in his glances, he of languid eyes,
Who has no tenderness for me, and seduced me with his indifference,

18. My heart is ever faithful, though the branches
Have narrated to it the soft words of bending,

19. O you with the radiant countenance, more beautiful and refined than the full moon,
Though sweeter and fairer in its making,

20. Bearing his cup, he circles it, turning it into a sun,
Rising from the dawn on his brow,

21. Delighted with the wine of youth and its gardens,
On which he made the roses blush over the nectarines,

22. The rose of his mouth makes you forget his cup or the Persian jasmine,
He is the sweet refreshing whose purity pours from a generous hand,

23. My Master, when the clouds of his munificence rain,
Speak of whatever you wish about the Nile of Sehwan,

24. He is the most noble of this age, who in his Egypt,
Established a coffeehouse whose words inspire me,

25. I sacrifice myself for his refined and praised traits,
Like beauty itself, needing no embellishment,

26. The axis of glory and meaning, his words
Make eloquence and clarity dispensable,

27. To the highest heavens, as a child he reached,
And reached in excellence over his peers in his twenties,

28. He continues to let prosperity flow to me, until through him
I improved my hopes for comfort and survival,

29. And on the nights of my poverty when darkness falls,
The morn of his bestowal always guides me,

30. Indeed, his right hand was generous to me,
Out of nobility, and his right made my right rich with grants,

31. From his right palm, generosity drinks from a cloud,
While his left palm drinks from the son of Ma’een,

32. Difficult for enemies, though he
Is easy to every peacemaker and mournful soul,

33. I wove my praise into ingenious metaphors about him,
And through him, inspiration flowed into my composition,

34. I nurtured in it every pleasing meaning,
And delivered the purpose through the content,

35. By God, were it not for praising him, I would have no
Skill in metaphor or rhetorical clues,

36. O Master, for whom I did not fear
Poverty or blame from the fault-finder,

37. Take this poem whose composition is adorned
With the essence hidden within the hidden,

38. And demand it as a melody that appeared on
The visages of turtledoves like joined eyebrows,

39. I sang your praise in meanings describing it,
And was amazed by it over an eloquent composer,

40. So gather it under your wing, and order away
The fortunate bird of your good fortune comes,

41. And take it today as the prayer of a loyal one,
While my tongue of gratitude is avowing belief,

42. And show kindness to me, even with the slightest favor,
For from the clouds comes a sprinkling that waters me,

43. Due to my misery, my palm became empty of silver like the letter meem,
A type devoid of the inflection tanween,

44. I remain in honor and approaching fortune,
While you remain in power and authority,

45. Never did the leaves play music on a lute,
Nor did they compose a melody without notation,