1. She flowed in the course of creatures, a creature,
And came to you, dashing the dawnflowers with a dawnflower.

2. When my tears were shed on her cheeks,
I knew my blood had been shed there too.

3. She said, "Are you grieved by my weeping, yet
No sympathizer consoles me for parting?"

4. "O you - what vicissitudes of Time
Have made suitable for mockery!

5. "Do not grieve, haply Time will clear
And reunite the longing with the longed-for."

6. Can your body bear sickness when it has not been
Strong enough for bonds and fetters?

7. Enough! If I am not truthful in my vows
To seek wealth, do not call me truthful.

8. Until solitude is my boon companion
And the waste my house, the sword my comrade;

9. My hopes have embarked on an resolved venture -
If the wind raced it, it would arrive outstripped.

10. So I am like the stars that set
Or return at daybreak.

11. Why does Time tomorrow wear a different face
After we used to see it free?

12. I trail the surplus train of my youth's robe
In the shade of a life ever graceful,

13. Treading on my heels in the paths of love,
Spending the night and morn now advancing, now held back.

14. The tribe of beauties - none but the accustomed
In place of the accustomed, and friend for friend.

15. The drafts of youth did not cheat me of my nature,
Nor did I grow accustomed to waking from its intoxication.

16. With tender glances, when my right is regarded
And when I regard their rights,

17. I rise to delights heedless of censure,
Without prohibition or fear of hindrance.

18. Among lads who have doffed their gravity, not ceasing
To ply the rites of rectitude.

19. I shared pleasure with them, the scent of whose zephyr
Seemed perfume rapturous to the sense of smell.

20. When the boon companions left they tore
The veil of night, their departure splitting its veil.

21. The blackness of its gloom dyed by the redness of its hue
So that it seemed embroidered with carnelian.

22. And indeed I say to my companion, "Come,
Be my guest by the Euphrates at morn!"

23. The Euphrates - it is the wine, and we
Are topers of wine on wine.

24. Were it not for my lineage in Khandaf's tribe
I would be naught but manners and breeding.

25. Am I not its highest in noble ancestors.
And most generous in munificence?

26. We whose fathers built for us a glory
Whose structure rivals the celestial vault -

27. We inundate the lands with proudly massed squadrons
Whose particles blench hearts with lightning and thunder,

28. A people - when they attack for war they shred
The foe's brain with their Indian swords.

29. They march out a band who kill when
They plan descent, and capture bands.

30. And if the tribes enumerate its magnates
To appoint an inclination or bar a pass,

31. They count the Hashimite Prophet and his kin,
The Veracious and the Discriminator, his minister.

32. And their successors among the Abbasids have
Exhausted all the world pursuing them.

33. They are God's elect among mankind,
Who mastered righteousness and prospered through success.

34. But for them our eyelids would not have savored
The sweetness of slumber, nor our throats, saliva.

35. And if I take refuge in a Khandafite stronghold,
And ascend the lofty summit of Sa'd ibn Dhubyan,

36. I will defend the roads to glory and leave
None to attain the road to glory.

37. The knowledge of the world collectively, and ancestral glory,
Suffice me to dazzle and impress.

38. Do not the two Brilliant Stars contain enough
To spare you indicating a created being?