1. My friend, sing praises and say: O beauty manifest!
Sulaima came gliding gracefully in her palanquin.

2. The sun's vicegerent suffices the living during its absence,
As if the Maker molded it from light.

3. Her figure was made perfect and pervaded her limbs,
As if she were one of the maidens of Paradise.

4. And her apparition would sometimes haunt me,
And I would visit her before the birds' singing.

5. When she saw me behind a curtain,
She walked slowly in a frequently worn wrap.

6. She took sun among the maidens, then they told her:
"Walk on." So she said: "A prince does not take orders."

7. Until when a dimple smiled under her cheek,
She returned after prayers and glorifications.

8. And we shared something, and she shared with me
Something similar without change.

9. The night bid us farewell, calling between blankets
That summon the dawn with an unvisited voice.

10. So I slipped away from her and she slipped into her amusements,
As if it had all been an unfulfilled dream.

11. O her scent amidst basil and perfume
That makes the darkness prostrate in worship of flasks!

12. She is one of those whom, when the wine-jugs are passed around,
She prays with an ear inclined to the sound of glasses and pouring.

13. Were it not for the Caliph, we would have visited her,
But we made a covenant with the Trustworthy in goodness.

14. Before this I did not guard my seeing eyes
Or watch those of immorality and falsehood.

15. Until when the Righteous Mahdi promised me,
I left it for the passionate drunkard.

16. So now I refrain from Salma, and the Caliph's covenant adorns me,
The ornament of the robe with rivets.

17. O Salma, we are prevented from coming to you by a king
Whose love of loyalty and my passion are no excuse.

18. My soul bids you safety and prayer to Allah
That nothing but the foreordained cut short this friendship.

19. I am seen off by a verse
That departed burning in a dog and pig.

20. I am the disheveled one whom jinn fear because of my madness,
And enemies cannot sleep because of my poems.

21. I have raised a people though lowly in account,
And I have masked men after uncovering.

22. One approaching and one retreating, his face frowning
As if it were a piece of dry bread, unbroken.

23. I undid him with the point of a spear, alone,
Without loved ones, in the blackness of night.

24. O his beauty manifest in the perfection of a full moon
That made the soul soar, nay, that said to it: "Fly!"

25. Until when the night parted from him and bid me farewell
With falling tears and a wrap of stars,

26. It was as if, at the whitening of dawn, turning away,
The full moon of the sky flowed into vessels.