1. We hoped your estrangement would end with reunion
But the guide led you to boredom instead

2. A reproaching breeze blew your meaning away
So you leaned, and your slender body swayed

3. You traveled to the breeze, and made it your abode
The gathering-place of beauty and grace untold

4. So be generous before you travel, and promise
The one who is quick to move and change residence

5. These roses wilt on cheeks
That have withered like the shaking of tree branches

6. The days of youth, however long their nights
Are not immune from decline and loss

7. I pardoned your coldness to me, for I saw
Treachery was the making of nights

8. You knocked white hairs into my head
As if the glances of your eyes were my grays

9. A blackness troubles my heart
So my mind is distressed by the gloom of cares

10. If my heavy sorrow rode upon time's back
It would groan under the burden and halt

11. How many friends I have among its sons
Who beguile me with deceitful eyes

12. I urge them to be faithful, but they refuse
And turn away from the path of moderation

13. I was patient with them, enduring, until
They knew my excellent patience and endurance

14. And I said to them, "Set it free from ties
That would make the fat one gaunt and frail"

15. Urge it along and rouse it, for we
Are weary of halter and withholding

16. I bless its blessings in lodgings
Where it spends nights with luggage strewn

17. Of a lifetime whose every thought
Was ruin that each successor brought

18. He whose refuge did not enrich him—
To Omar ibn Al-Farid my course is set!