1. Had I not been finite, I would not have obeyed the prohibition of prohibitions
How far does one who has surpassed limits ask to go?

2. If I fell short, no heart is as short as my heart
That bleeds constantly from the glances of the tearful

3. And an eyelid, if I winked, to the people of absence
I winked while in its eyelids are the embers of anguish

4. And how many gazelles I shepherded, their glances
Quicker in souls than the edge of a sword

5. And the more their eyelids grew in strength
The weaker they made the strength of powers

6. Quicker than a letter to caesura and from
Love to a grain of a heart-stricken heart

7. The loftiness of Quss ibn Sa`ida ibn `Amir
After it, no ascent remains for climbers to climb

8. Long has my tear flowed in a night
Whose traces the ravages of time have hidden from time’s ravages

9. The hands of air have snatched its features
Passion has snatched the souls of the passionate

10. So the Pleiades have divided it as
The causes of anguish divide the captive

11. It is a howdah whose riders have not ceased
With life in it until death ended its life

12. And a flexed Nun, or a Sa`d with a dot under it, or a straight Mim went on
Or a thigh of a scorpion, or a hand that journeyed

13. And disheveled hair that has left of it only
As much as patience has left of the kernel

14. Abodes where those who camped there found
Affection, tears, passion and fervor

15. Whose ruins have been erased like writing
Desolate like white hair in a brunette

16. As if it were intimacy that parted or the settlement of fate
That settled, or the bending of ancient times that bent

17. And how many nights whose terrors I faced
With ambition above the sky like the sky

18. Its darkness prolonged so we thought
It was relenting to us from them what has passed

19. And in my right hand a sharp sword
With which I sever a day of parting and resolve

20. If asked or insulted, like lightning
In the cloud when the cloud flowed

21. Daisies like cheeks engraved
With whiskers in which there is musk and beard

22. As if the buttress were the eyes of one staring intensely
Too weak to close them from the light

23. As if Al-Butayn in its tracks
Were seeking vengeance from an assailant who had assailed

24. As if an-Najm ath-Thurayya were a white standard
Rising above a standard when it rose

25. As if at-Tabi` were a fire lit by
Wayfarers on a path getting light

26. As if al-Huq`ah were the head of a steed or a howdah
In a quarter that has healed

27. As if al-Han`ah when it rose
Were an eyelid shedding tears not yet dry from crying

28. Inclining on the arm complaining
The complaint of a lover overwhelmed so he complained

29. As if an-Nathrah were the trace of an ibex
Or a calf that has mounted the cheeks

30. As if al-Jabhah in its markings
Were a torrent over the tracks of a heel that flowed

31. As if az-Zubrah were two beloveds who
Sufficed with the belovedness of all people

32. As if al-Ghafr were an inclined wing
Or a neck leaning to a hadith that listened

33. As if al-Aakil were a coronet on
The head of a bride on her wedding day adorned

34. Followed by stars that seem
Stars grazing in a land of neither hills nor dales

35. And the land shone like a land that
Perished when the quarter became empty

36. As if as-Sa`d, when the Pleiades rose
Were a meadow of thorns watered by eyes

37. He brings them forward like a slaughterer
Or a seeker fearing to miss what he sought

38. And Sa`d Bul` appeared laughing
Or drinking from a cup of wine

39. Racing in its course the Sa`d which
Its rising, pleasing to behold when seen

40. Like a gazelle between two sinuous dunes for it
Or a lover between two censors bold

41. And Thurayya
From an enemy that hid and disappeared

42. And the Empty Quarter came to the Empty Quarter as
A thirsty man comes to fresh water that sated

43. As if al-Hut when it rose
Were a whale in a turbulent sea that churned

44. As if the sound of thunder in it were a reader
Whose echo murmurs in what he recited

45. And a narcissus as if it were glances
Sprinkling gently cool on eyelids

46. When the rise of the crescent showed its deficiency
Eyes drowned in seas of tears