1. My heart was stirred with anguished longing
And my tears and pillow increased my love

2. Houses whose hovels reproached me
And my patience stood to depart calling

3. Was it magic or truly as magic that when she came
My bed and pillow were condemned to longing

4. She reminds me of a time we had and dwellings
Watered from overflowing generosity towards the pact

5. I wrested her from my sight and affection
The blackness of my heart or darkness of darkness

6. So O arouser for me of passion in an effaced ruin
Gently, gently, for my heart is not stone

7. O owner of sublime bounty forever
For so much bounty I have from Him and His hands

8. O glorious one to whom I gave my troth
And chose for the unseen, pure love

9. Can I be solaced after your absence
Or find sweet my livelihood or slumber

10. The separation refused save to see you wearing
The robes of my sorrow's mourning night

11. So a tear sheds its languor and I withdraw
Faint from severe longing yet begin

12. If I traveled East and West
Only the sweet memory of you would sustain me

13. Being parted from you saddened me and dropped
My strength so no humor delights me or bard sings

14. Neither does the softly stepping gazelle among her kin
Soothe me, or the smooth lissome beauties frolic

15. Nor the alluring dancer flaunt his shape
As his glancing eyes pierce every heart

16. Nor the blonde bright singer urge her cups
To restrain the fervor of tender waists

17. O my brother and helper in tribulations, he
Whom I call upon for protection when dangers call

18. Your people, my closest kin and companions are my ransom
As is what I own of property and followers

19. There came to me from your plateau, my friend
A piece with my soul?plateau on which you camped.

20. The meadow nay, more delightful than meadows
When the Exalted One sends plenteous rains

21. You sent it from the plateau of my Creator's favor
In both worlds, manifest and unseen

22. Pillar of Guidance, Lord of High Places, Guide of Creation
To the best path and most upright word

23. May the God of the Throne always cast on us His shade
And preserve for Islam the best of its pillars

24. And your servant has sent his reply attempting
To keep pace with you though your steed outdistances

25. So take what portion of my answer was ready
For you are more dew-fresh as you are an initiate

26. Pardon me, I met your bounty with pebbles
And contended with a fathomless, roiling sea

27. Overlook and forgive, being gracious about the ugliness
That appeared to you therein of faults and decay

28. For you are the one who led silly lines captive
And none but you unknots what is tangled

29. You are the one who in the arena of the sublime
Rose over every gabbling fool and fraudulent imposter

30. Yet I have become after you a mute
Though I am proficient in language and eloquence

31. For a lifetime which turned me with disasters, shifting
And squeezed my heart with repeated afflictions

32. Prolonging my battles with harm and injury
Not as long as War of Al-Harith ibn 'Abbad

33. Trying to drop me and undo my station
Busily plotting to damp my spark

34. And heavy debts to people, O son of Nasir
Toss me to and fro and make me nod off

35. They filled my heart with gloom and robbed me of
My sleep and gave the reins of my affairs to others

36. So for them I became a pawn in displacement
And nothing but displacement is my want and purpose

37. And though it was my birthplace and origin
And where my head was laid, it is not my country

38. I have no country but where I strike roots
And my honor is safe from slander by enemies

39. A land where I need not fear disgrace should
The chance turns of Time bring me troubles

40. Shall I dwell among folk who prize poetry cheaply traded
In their pure bright honor or total boycott

41. I'd rouse them to bounty, gentility, softness
Though their lids brim with slumber

42. And stir them with verse every hour
You'd think my rousing a boulder down a wadi

43. Of woven lines I met with nothing but neglect
Preoccupied hours and protracted wakefulness

44. So they won neither intercessor nor flowed
A pen in their scrolls with ink

45. I desire bliss and wealth through them
But they bode ill as nights of the camel plague

46. And set my mind on every turbulent, foaming sea
Only for my heart in my breast to roar out distress

47. Perhaps the nights might favor with a caravan
To good grazing, spacious and free

48. Lit for refugees, around which mountains
Of ashes from its first kindled fires sprawl

49. Spilling from his sufficient palm onto suppliants
Camels roped, steeds at liberty

50. No man is a youth but hopes the world
For killing foes or arms expenditure

51. And live what Time summons with Allah's summoner
Calling Him for mighty tribulation loudly

52. And I beseech from His Bounty our regathering
And not decreeing separation between us ever