1. When will my greeting reach the one whose absence I lament?
May your abode be blessed with the rain of my unconditional greeting.

2. May the drought of your home be relieved by the downpour of my eyelids,
When the clouds fail to bring sufficient rain.

3. Please be pleased with me, O daughter of Sa'd,
And be content with my loyalty and care.

4. Send with the passing breeze a stingy specter,
That sleeps from staying away, if you allow.

5. One visiting from Iraq while you live in Damascus,
Sheltered by the place you dwell.

6. If the nights promise that he'll get to see you,
He travels with you in the darkness happily.

7. The caravan appears, your fragrance permeates it,
So I know if it's Munjid or Tihami.

8. Ask about none other, for you are my sole concern.
I avoid blame and take no issue with blame.

9. Honorable gazelles ambitious with desires,
Yet no arrow of the archer hits its mark.

10. So O gazelles, if you fear dire consequences,
Then fear God in slaying the lovesick.

11. If not for the tyranny of Banu Tamim's full moon,
The witness would not be sent to complete his task.

12. If the son of Ayyub had surrendered, then never
Would wholesome peace remain for the pigeons.

13. But a trusted one from him betrayed me,
And delivered me to dangers, my protector.

14. With him I warded off the disgrace of my people,
And was made to drink bitterness by my protector.

15. I said "The sword will bring me victory." But when
I tore with it the garb of darkness, it betrayed me.

16. What sin of mine when betrayal came from my sword?
If you convey on behalf of a heart struck down

17. With mature love and the life of a virile youth,
Say to Muhammad, perhaps a fading ember

18. Asleep will return burning anew.
After my audacity towards you and the briefness

19. Of your love for me compared to others,
And your preoccupation with me, though matters arise

20. That distract the eye from the habit of sleep.
I remind you of one you never forgot,

21. And sharpen what time itself made blunt.
With my insistence, I carve a boulder from you,

22. While the disease of waiting eats away my bones.
You appease me with excuse after excuse,

23. Though frequent argument only ruins speech.
If you were fair, considering your merit and my devotion,

24. I would have remained discreet.
You begrudged a drop of the water of your face -

25. Yet if the drops lasted, it would be a river.
I wanted you for the one who drew near and then grew distant,

26. I did not intend the difficult goal.
Today after our separation, you refuse

27. My messages and make it hard to reach you.
Like another, if I complain of him to you,

28. I would complain of illness to something more ill!
Say "Alas! My hopes are dead, so I free you

29. From the forbidden blood of hope."
Glory shows me to shoot true,

30. Yet it cannot match your disapproval of my arrows.
I endure silence, which implies a meaning

31. More hurtful than speech could convey.
Declaring openly to you makes me unwell,

32. While my essence surrenders to you, hidden away.
As for the estranged brother, his hidden grudge appears,

33. His anger boiling in contention.
His frown yields to the sweetness of reproach

34. From the bitterness of speech.
Another who wronged me, fearing my rebuke,

35. I pardoned, like sparing mosquitoes on a frosty night.
Among the two offenders, one can be tolerated

36. Lest he be shamed in vengeance.
Do not make the rhyme a vehicle

37. For haste and conventionality.
Its vulgarity to you is excessive advice,

38. And how often it echoes what lies beneath the veil!
When prose roared with that

39. Which the skeptical avoid out of principle,
Poetry confined itself, so say no more,