1. You woke me, then slept, ignoring my awakening,
And preached morals, though deaf to moral preaching.

2. Do not neglect the home where love was kindled;
I keep faith still, though you trust little.

3. My patience never flagged for just a moment
Had you been other than one who glimpses and is gone.

4. Too oft the vie between us was a contest
In tears, till I could wash our bitter words away.

5. Let there be no reproach in this, our dwelling’s shade,
Not in the meadows, nor beneath the boughs.

6. My tears bear witness to those nights of misery,
With longing, though my hands were chained by you.

7. My brimming hopes were watchmen of my passion,
With glances directing them which way hope lay.

8. Do not pretend that you can keep faith truly;
Be frank that you have neither faith nor troth in me.

9. For my belief in you was held in secret;
Tell me, for what new love have you betrayed me?

10. Your love will come to me again like lightning
As once I hoped, when you poured down like rain.

11. There will come days when Time returns in friendship,
Coming like one who comes back home again.

12. I mourn a youth whose loss has left me naked,
As though the branch she clung to were no more.

13. O ignorant days that made me mount their backs!
Far nobler days have let me ride their shoulders.

14. The old mad love is still my song and subtitle;
I brandish still the same old bludgeoning sword.

15. Where is the comrade of my revels now?
Where is the fellow of my wild forays?

16. Let me enrage rich men by being wealthy,
And spite the wealthy by my easy riches.

17. O heart, do not be hard, or you will suffer
At the hands of days more merciless than you.

18. I spend my wonder on a careless people
Who neither rise at dawn, nor rest at sunset.

19. Misfortune frowns on my most faithful servant,
Yet fortunes smile on grubby beggary.

20. I have a right to shred the reputation
Of any slanderer who tears my own apart.

21. I love to force the man who would wrong me
To choke on force-feeding, gagged against his will.

22. From a kind lord whom I revere and honour,
The highest in the land hold me in esteem.

23. Not all the will of enmity can touch me;
Nor does my rival with his lies demean me,

24. Spewing insidious malice in his poems
Day after day to do me down, the snake!

25. What line of verse but he distorts against me!
How poisonous his tongue when he provokes!

26. Yet here is one whose help delights me,
A true friend's vengeance on my bitter foe.

27. My Lord defends me from the envious soul
Who vents his rage against me for no cause.

28. The years pass: when he seeks to do me mischief,
Providence trips him up and brings him low.

29. Have you not seen him spit poetic venom
Each day, to wound me with a viper's bite?

30. But here is help from a most eminent lord
To whom my fortunes and my houses bow.

31. His flashing blade is sheathed in its scabbard
Until the day he bares it for the fight.

32. No word escaped him but in quicksilver flight,
Though fluent speech flowed gently from his mouth.

33. Describe and praise him! Yet no words suffice
To capture fully his supreme endowments.

34. O Guide of all that stirs the mind of man,
O Polestar of all thought within my head,

35. You have been stern and strict in punishing
The wrong I did; be strict, yet also pardon.

36. For I believe your pardon stems from love,
As the she-camel loves her newborn's muzzle.

37. My critic! Though I do not wear your mantle,
Scourge me with any rod, I shall not mind.

38. I gave my verse the sweet taste of your blame,
Though your reproof was sweeter than praise.

39. Tomorrow your arrow will announce your judgment;
Whether you cast it or hold it back, I bow.

40. I shall keep still, preserving what we treasured,
Until the honor of it stand revealed.