1. The pangs of yearning and anguish
Have bent me lower than the bending twig

2. Alas for the sleeplessness of long nights
While my Laila slumbers long

3. The night passed unpitying my wanderings
Neither following my path nor guiding my steps

4. It brushed aside the ways of others, seeing
While my own way was without guide

5. It turned away uncaring though you spurned me
And your love blamed my estrangement

6. O rider through the long night
Dawn will soon unhorse you

7. The mirages are before you
How can you rest to alight?

8. See, tears have blinded
My eyes from beholding like the nightblind

9. Lightnings - can you discern?
Or lamps in the darkness?

10. They race the sun alongside flocks
Till shadows outstripped them a little

11. Bearing a cheek white as a silver cup
Clasped close in their urgency

12. The setting sun's retreat adorned it
With a flush like the glow of the noble

13. My friend, and fate is against me
Granting me but an hour to depart

14. Take by my blood the earth of Umm 'Amr
When the sword takes the slain as booty

15. And breathe the air of Sulayma's land
Passing by her abandoned encampment

16. Before her I found no healing
In the breeze of the gentle east wind

17. I urge on the camels' legs
What they swept of the soil of departing

18. Your abode, though the party travels straight
You know, O Salm, I do not swerve

19. And how the cloak's shadow clung there
When they, departing, folded my tent

20. The sickness of sadness went halting from me
And her - the torrents wash away

21. The rain learned from my tears
And left the land for a different course

22. Not my gifts of promises to fulfill
Better than your long promise

23. Nor the beloved's attainment more prized
Than your glancing image's avarice

24. How often the night of communion is
Darker for me than all-encompassing gloom

25. I wish it to lengthen my night
Even if it worsens my chronic sickness

26. Prudence has restrained me and granted me success
And inspired my imagination

27. And time has proven how it passes
My westering in it into extinction

28. If dry years misled a people
My forbearance returned to my ignorance

29. Or if old age enriched men
My chivalry increased over the vigorous

30. My soul never surrendered to lethargy
And my honor is protected despite resignation

31. Nor has my hand submitted to poverty
While wealth is humbled to one side

32. In the comfort of life I have moderation
So I care nothing for excess

33. Fortune was not just in apportioning
Had I complained of its subtlety

34. How virtue modeled many a youth
After me despite my lack of means

35. Abodes like the crescent moon revive
My kindling in the darkness my path

36. My wings will carry me speeding
While fate takes away my flowing water

37. The family of Abdelraheem, faithful indeed
As if charged with fulfilling my wishes

38. The branches of their tribe did not
Disappoint the glory of their roots

39. Nor in their magnanimity have they sought
Pride, thereby plugging the gap of fraud

40. The clear jewels within them
Are societies bound for great deeds

41. Their hands moist with belting on the sword
In the pleasures of the faded year

42. If the living call for help
Their oaths are renewed by the tongues of swords

43. They stripped bare the disgrace from their rods
With every stripping that bares the sharp sword

44. And rose alert when nations slept
Eyes closed in slumber

45. Every brave youth there stops up
A breach in the tribe with his soul

46. The sea is abashed before his hand
The moon before his beautiful face

47. Beneath his leg the robes' trains recoil
Though long, now shortened

48. He spans the canal's length in strides
While it shrinks from him in decay

49. Glory grows from Abul Maali
To lofty ground, noble and sublime

50. On the day glory is unveiled from him
He bears the burden on shoulders strong

51. Dazzling white he flows on the beautiful camels
In my path, clearly smooth

52. The eyes rain down tears before him
From the severity of passion

53. No weakness in the helpless weakling
Nor recklessness in the hasty youth

54. Promise and gift rely on him
As speaker of great deeds

55. Balanced in nature, sweet in taste
Both difficult and gentle

56. The Nile adds to its softness
If conceit plays with the waterwheel

57. To the knotty problems of poverty
He is a pouring cloud

58. If the mouths of the glib go dry
He sends it from a mouth eloquent

59. Some ransomed slave of his would give his glory
Content with praise as recompense

60. Complaisant without greed
And stumbling without resignation

61. His wealth is liberal with gifts
And his provisions abundance to enjoy

62. My solace as the Euphrates is salty
The cooling of affection fulfilled my anguish

63. You captivated me with loyalty when
You saw it, though I had little

64. You supported me when you inclined to my aid
While people sat back, indifferent

65. A matter, though slight, is weighty to me
In the balance of the steep ascent

66. When you carry the flour for me
You feel no disdain for the exalted

67. Estrangement does not turn you from me
From the kindness of fulfilled attachment

68. You do not reproach my lifelong inadequacy
Nor upbraid my failure

69. So the reward from me is incumbent on you
The weighing of deeds and recompense

70. If poetry comes from palaces
Their breasts have not known chastity

71. Intimacies they knew no modesty before you
Never touched by separation

72. They envelop you until I fear for them
God forbid the boredom of jadedness

73. If alone with them they stand openly
As guides of my traced footsteps

74. Of Arab nature yet Persian behavior
The ends of their robes trailing

75. I had prepared them for a day
When glory would reach my aspirations

76. I hoped to wed them beneath the shade
Of your rain of blessings, abundant

77. Endowed with your judgment, Mahra for dowry
From the outpouring of your generous hands

78. But time has turned me from it
Knowing the confusion of change

79. If an era breeds loss through you
It will not be without deceit and injustice

80. And how much wisdom corrupts into ruin
Like the striking sparks from Indian steel

81. And fingers are outstretched, forgetting
Oaths and covenants now void

82. Wisdom is not safe from corruption
That kindles while honor slumbers

83. So if I bear money's disgrace
The rain will revive it after a little

84. The sun must suffer an eclipse
And life, loss at its perfection

85. Then both return, unchanged
With no less light or blemish

86. God's blessing on you is enough for me
I am content with your care, kind guardian

87. Through you my time is prolonged
And fate is gentle to me

88. While an envier among you desires my place
Calling Suhayl to descend

89. And one absent, whose crime is
That you have become aware of me