1. My soul is ransom for the whiteness of smooth-skinned Arab youths
Who played with me at the Black Stone and rocks

2. I cannot find my way when lost without them
Except by their fragrance and the traces of their sweet scent

3. No night is gloomy if it has a moon
Except when I remember them and wander in the moonlight

4. It is only when I spend my evenings in their company
That the night becomes to me like the sun at dawn

5. Of my love poems, I courted but one maiden
A beauty without peer among all people

6. When she reveals her face, she shows you a radiance
Like that of a doe, pure without blemish

7. For the sun is her veil, for the night her cloak
She is sun and night together, a marvel to behold

8. So we are with her in daylight though it be night
And we are at noon in a night of poetry