1. O moments of temptation -
In its abhorrence, my fairest fortune,

2. You cast, and I am utterly undone,
Each one an arrow true.

3. Advice to the lover is allowed,
But acceptance - never.

4. I hung it as the face of morning,
My eyes rained dew of youth.

5. Like the gazelle its mouth was wanton
From what it had browsed on the mead.

6. O gazelle, take my heart and roam
For you are a stranger among men,

7. And browse, for my tears are a chain,
My love a meadow, a lush terrain.

8. Between the blamer and the praiser
Lies life and death.

9. The garden plots of the guardsman
Grew on their cheeks the rose of shame.

10. I planted it with a glance
And harvested it with hope.

11. In its languid moment, an idol, a charm,
It kept vigil the lids of the sorrowful one.

12. Continuance in it is burdensome,
The mind of the wise is perplexed.

13. It gave me the cold of reproach
The chill of blame it fanned.

14. Had I kissed it that cold would have melted
By my breath, that frost.

15. Then had I turned the cheek of a twist
Its adornment only the braid.

16. In the stirring of the graceful gazelle
And the quiver of the tender branch

17. There runs for my tears a brook
From which springs a rod.

18. Are you a houri, did the Garden send you in truth?
For the report hearts were cut to pieces for you,

19. And it was said “This cannot be mortal!”
Umm al-Safa is anguished, distraught,

20. From the pine, Umm al-Kadar.
My love is purified by tribulation,

21. The ways of passion are wondrous strange!
My longing is like an alembic -

22. With the fires of separation more fragrant.
You were strange in your surpassing beauty,

23. And so my tears became a Maghrib.
The scope of my love is everything,

24. And my tears are hands that give drink.
So listen, obedient slave,

25. Who sang to disobey the overseers.
This overseer - how I wish he were not so quick to suspect!

26. O my lady arise, let us go against
The one who suspected the overseer.