1. O my friend, be brief in reproaching me,
For meeting is the mother of contentment.

2. As if its morning were upon the decline of mortal life,
And the star has come near its setting.

3. It breathes the aroma of a sweet wine,
Mixed with pure musk or ambergris.

4. I keep your absence though it pleases me
If you knew I remember you virtuously.

5. A day will come when I see no messenger from you,
Or we meet in it after months.

6. Would that I met sudden death,
If the day of meeting you was not decreed.

7. Or I could pretend to forget you,
Then some of my youthful folly would awaken and reflect.

8. If you knew how I suffer from passion,
You would excuse me or wrong me if you did not excuse.

9. By God, the heart knows nothing about it
Except suspicions and reports of the informer.

10. Think not that I abandoned you willingly,
By your life, it is strange that you are abandoned!

11. The wailing women will weep for me if I reveal
One day your secret, though I am not excused.

12. My heart loves you as long as I live, so if I die
My reverberation follows your reverberation between the graves.

13. To you, with what you promised for our meeting, I look
The look of the destitute to the wealthy man of plenty.

14. Debts are paid, but this debtor to us
Does not fulfill his promise, yet he is not insolvent.

15. You and the promise with which you make promises to me
Are but like the lightning of a cloud that did not rain.

16. I warned my heart, but it rejected my warning,
So when did I estrange it, that you have multiplied?