1. The imagination journeyed off with a sleepless eye,
Whose torment distressed its wanderings.

2. It greeted the deceit of a coquettish one,
Though its splendor never reached a quarter.

3. It weakened, wandered, and had only
Its memory and yearning left.

4. I opened my eyes, then promptly
Closed them along with greed to shut it in.

5. And I folded my palms to grasp
Its chill and cling to it.

6. How strange the journey of Umm Sa’d’s mother!
What strayings does it traverse in the dark?

7. It walked confusedly with ambiguous
Shapes in the gloom to track them.

8. And its shadow alternated
Between homes dividing them.

9. It visited while under our cheeks
Were the harnesses and straps of the mounts.

10. The cloak of each well-off one of us
Its brocade embroidered with gold thread.

11. So our hems were perfumed with its
Pleats, the incense and frankincense burning.

12. And we regained some shreds of spirits
Snatching them in theft to pilfer.

13. O garden of the two faiths, your
New moon of Jumada brought its delicacy,

14. And the choicest spring gifts came
To you with what gives you joy, well-ordered.

15. I knew the distance would not persist
After your full moon was complete,

16. Until I saw it set and its east
Weeping for it while its west shone.

17. In it the Dari spoke the truth—the Dari!
And how graceful and gentle it was!

18. Proffering the cup of love while its
Glances overflowed in libertine freedom.

19. Your lips receive it with an intimate kiss
While your eyelids shower arrows upon it.

20. Your cheek cools his breast while the glance
Of your eye inflames it.

21. Increase his passion if the intensity of your passion
Disturbs him, and passion disquiets him.

22. And join the slender one in the night
If your specter knocks at his door.

23. Do not be bashful with my blood, for your
Kisses have none other that they covet.

24. My flesh, so it persists tearing me apart.
I pawned my heart playing,

25. While love with you imprisons it.
My heart is mine, so when you love

26. Another, who then loves it?
Look, if only you were distracted

27. By demons, whom their passions command!
And know you leave behind only

28. A heart you squander.
You claimed the gray hair is a sin

29. That is unforgiven, leading to perdition.
So who is it that the glances of

30. The wild cows continue to watch?
The turtledoves coo, and what

31. Song has no flourishing melody?
Do not look at dawn unless

32. Its blue has whitened.
And in the roamings of a wakeful life,

33. I wearied, examining its chastity.
Who will help me rise vigorously

34. To overcome destinies and release them?
Fortune made his mother happy

35. Or perfected and made him a fool.
How the deprived man wearies, hoping

36. That greed will provide him sustenance!
Contentment liberates the free man,

37. While craving enslaves him.
If the face is veiled, nothing can

38. Create beauty.
And indeed, I inclined toward

39. Submissiveness, though it chokes the submissive one.
Displaying joy in its atmosphere

40. Until it was as if I shone with light.
The seat of lofty flags, the earth of Bilad

41. Whose aroma I inhaled to revive myself.
Its vast plain spreading

42. For the ample range of the mounts and their straps.
The official wrote its register, and its

43. Cheek beneath the turbans ripped from their wraps.
Lines written above it in verification,

44. And lines he copied in transcription.
I conversed with it while night

45. Scattered its Pleiades dividing them.
Alone, easing my solitude,

46. A fresh downpour invented.
It diverts me from friends and company,

47. Delighting me with its gentleness.
It flows copiously if the intention dries up,

48. Quenching me at daybreak with its outpouring.
Awhile adorning my shoulders,

49. And a time clutching my mantle,
Echoing between leaders

50. Whose glory time has not rivaled,
Spreading in its expanse if the horizon

51. Consumes the path with its flowing.
It has forbearance and dignity,

52. And I placed my trust in its cares.
It casts over the lies of glances

53. A gaze of confidence, crediting them.
I could not reproach it when it began

54. To appoint me fortunes and grant me honor,
Until I clung to a wakeful one

55. Whose hospitality disquiets him.
My visiting him every evening

56. When passions thicken their cooking fires.
Smiling throughout the years, glowing

57. In the darkness, flames kindled within.
A torrent flooding its riverbeds,

58. Addicted to it, gently flowing.
The sword takes what the eye approves of,

59. Or it disdains and rejects.
It meets you fair of face

60. Before bestowal, luminously shining,
Like lightning in its flashing flight

61. Trailing behind clouds as they pour.
The water of beauty gathers in it,

62. Sweet, limpid, and clear.
Wealthy from profitable enterprises,

63. Generous to faults, freely granting.
Like a lion scorning any food

64. Except fresh prey torn asunder.
His swords guaranteed sustenance

65. To those who seek their provision.
So the sword collects his money

66. While generosity scatters it.
From the family of Ishmael whose

67. Lineage is pure and pedigreed.
A home of sedentary honor whose

68. Admixture and attachments are few.
A lineage as if the sun brilliantly

69. Shone with honor perfuming it.
The loftiest celestial bodies desire

70. A home they can hope to attain.
His qualities make slippery the foot

71. Of the pretentious and cause them to slip.
No fault can climb up to it,

72. Nor cling to it and ascend.
Its center is its Ishmaelite core,

73. And its scope successful in its obtainment.
Nearby honor that is also remote,

74. Comprehensive for you and rising high.
Through your father its pillar was erect,

75. And it spread strengthening its structure.
It surpassed men, so they lagged behind

76. While its gentle manner progressed.
It proceeded, its view struck

77. Straight as arrows efficiently aimed.
It gained the honor of royal crowns,

78. Its corridor or its brigade.
What lies between a head it protected

79. And a head it clove in two!
It led the heights and flowed, so it surpassed

80. Those who compete—none can overtake it.
And I saw your effort behind it,

81. So I knew you would attain it.
No former glory has died for you

82. To succeed it and arrange it.
The pegases flourish with your merit—

83. You verify the reports.
And when did a young man learn

84. Generosity except from your soul that taught it?
How many doors of fortune your beloved

85. Name opened when locked!
And clouds of your bounty from your

86. Right hand shaded the region pouring down.
For me and its floods—and from those who rivaled me—

87. Your superiority confounded me.
And poems you were generous to though

88. The miserable one's hypocrisy exposed him.
Sipping its harvest is sweet whenever

89. You taste it, sampling it.
And no admonishment for a stumble reached me

90. Except one perforated by your hearing.
It heard the clanking swords in dew soft as velvet,

91. But did not pierce or shred it.
So let its clouds in your land’s meadows

92. Rain upon it gifts pouring forth.
Every traveling night visitor will pass by you

93. While its canal gushes or its spring flows.
It proceeds describing your glorious deeds

94. Splitting open marvels in wondrous portrayal.
None besides me can thread such

95. Strange pearls on the needle of verse.
I gained its decisive conclusion if

96. Speech combines, the phrases interlinked.
For it is your forbearance, while upon your enemy

97. Is your recklessness, tearing him apart.
Falsely each day he brings you

98. A gift peddled from door to door.
My devotion to you sincerely, while any

99. Other than youcurries favor sycophantically.
How many festivals have gone from him!

100. And each day you cast him off.
I left him unemployed, his neck

101. Collared, fettered, and chained.
Those envious of you are not pleased

102. When the sincere offer you praise pure of alloy.
A man whose life prosperity inhabited

103. Due to you, so his speech prospered due to your hearing.
He comes to you hostile every day

104. With a gift hawked from place to place.
You love me loyally while I