1. A time like the visit of loved ones,
After despairing of an infatuated one’s withdrawal.

2. So serve me, O youth who lived for me,
Some wine to wash away the sorrows of passion.

3. Do you not see the flute has awakened the lute, O friend?
And singing that nearly quiets the water

4. With its warbling, free of disturbance,
Of a girl whose union with me is denied,

5. And whose promises are like a mirage.
They carried her far away when

6. They adorned her with the graces of proximity.
When she let down tresses like waving branches,

7. Unbraided, and turned back like the sun after setting
In gardens, as if she is not content

8. For me to busy myself with aught but her.
Her talebearer whispered to my heart’s disquiet

9. That it believes in punishment from her.
If her breeze blew on white hair,

10. It would return to the days of youth.
The rain embroidered her garden since it began

11. To flow down upon it from the trains of clouds.
The jonquils opened in it

12. Like eyes peering out from a veil,
And anemones that you see lighting up the garden

13. When they bloom without flames.
Like arrows of emerald

14. Embedded there, buds of the lily.
A pansy gleans it in mourning,

15. And sweet basil in the guise of one in doubt.
Her features traced for me how I might

16. Approach her in my coming and going.
A lover whose hue changes if absence

17. Takes them from visiting at the time of visiting.
His drink is the breeze of aloeswood,

18. His food the scent of earth’s musk.
In pages between a line of her garden, and a line

19. To be read without inflection.
I will be content with none but Ahmed

20. Who originated the causes of my time,
Whom I have not seen since he has been

21. Standing between attainer and seeker;
His palm scattered favors when

22. His exaltedness compiled them for students.
A giver of gifts on high with openhanded ease

23. Whose treasury doors are without guards.
For me therein are schools of doctrine,

24. The ways of fortune at the time of departure.
She derived from the subtlety of beauty a nature

25. She mingled with the beauty of the wine.
O Abul Qasim, your gifts removed

26. Hardships from formidable hardships.
No! And who has turned back the fruits of sorrows

27. With gifts from them upon their heels?
I care not if you count me among your servants

28. For what has dropped out from my reckoning.
The misers begrudged us, and you poured down

29. On us as an attainer without clouds.
My state requires you, not my requiring you,

30. For reward to be beneath clothing.
Whenever a wicked one blames me with reproach,

31. My attire takes his place in answering him.
So the title page shows the state I’m in,

32. For the title makes plain all that’s in the book.
I feared the ruin of my time, but you stood

33. For the settlement of the ruin of all time.
Rarely does the scholar spend, and he will not

34. Spend except on people of learning.
My shame before eyes when they

35. Behold me in these clothes!
The young branch is severed if it grows a little,

36. And the crescent returns after disappearing.