1. You slept, O bird, but I did not sleep
You are but a pretentious lover

2. Had you known true love's pain
You would have spent this night awake with me

3. O you who avoid love's path
I protect you from a restless bed

4. And from regrets that, if divided
Among those in shackles, would not make them sleep

5. O people of longing and sorrow
Who spent this night in misery

6. To you from a passionate lover
The greeting of the suffering to the suffering

7. By God, how harsh is the heart of one in anguish
To the heart of the passionate lover

8. This one is rough, dissatisfied with love
Not gentler than a rugged black rock

9. That one has the sides of an unkempt lad
Whose nature lacks gentleness

10. I housed a songbird in the courtyard
And said O soul, be content with it

11. Its cooing faster than my thoughts
Its rejection closer than my tears

12. Its cheek whose fire is not extinguished
As if it kindles from my ribs

13. The stars of nightfall asked about me
When they saw me close to death

14. They said: We see one in agony on earth
Who spent the night between despair and hope

15. Moaning like one abandoned or one
Struck by an arrow that wasn't pulled out

16. If he pined for the full moon at night
Does this moon have no rising?

17. If he loved a gazelle in the sanctuary
Does this gazelle have no pasture?

18. Alas O stars you cannot know
What stirs my sorrows or gives me hope

19. I am stingy in mentioning his name
My friend, the brilliant writer

20. Who has taxed the mind of the poet
Since he began to grow

21. And carries the pens legitimately
As if they are some unfurled spears

22. If words call him he comes willingly
And if the blind call he does not hear

23. I accompanied him for a time and knew him
A noble and excellent man

24. A friendship like wine, if set free
Flows generously in the name of the lawful

25. And a resolve that if divided among the people
They would fall asleep hearing poetry