1. O heart, renew your resolve,
For the tryst with the beloved is tomorrow.

2. Since they left, I see no difference
Between parting and perdition.

3. O sigh, stirred up
By one who called from the depths!

4. The lover's sighing avails him
More than Jesus revived the dead.

5. I shepherd the anxieties while compelling my heart to comply,
And chase after their traces though they cannot be chased.

6. Since they lit in my ribs
The embers of passion, those embers have not died down.

7. And since they melted the water of my eyes with sorrow,
That water has not frozen over.

8. O would that I see a need
That stiffens resolution and determination!

9. And where the sands have flowed
From their water-bags and solidified!

10. Shall I return, following a caravan of salvation,
Walking the swaying gait of the camel,

11. Whether loaded or unloaded?
Shall some caller call out to me

12. Of that graceful gazelle?
He has not strayed from me―rather,

13. My heart has strayed after him.
I pledged my heart to him, and whoever

14. Pledges his heart never regains it.
O you who fulfil your promise

15. And whose long absence fulfils no promise!
I see you closer to me

16. Though you are further away.
You have tortured my heart beyond endurance,

17. Yet the eyes, not the heart, betrayed me.
How often has an intimacy grown cold

18. For one whose intimacy did not grow cold!
O burn my heart, for it was watered

19. By their coldest acts of disapproval!
It does not know if it has tasted thereby

20. Hot embers or icy cold.
O my liver, be patient

21. For I cannot endure patience.
May a heart shepherd me that has found

22. Many stumblers and strugglers astray.
And who has loaded the unguided pilgrim

23. With burdens but not provisions.
If I do not find anything but

24. Humiliation wherever I alight,
I would doctor my liver

25. If only they had left me a liver!
Leave old age its due from me―

26. For in my eyes, it has a helping hand―
Having freed itself from the shackles of passion

27. Abased and worshipped.
Yet my passion is but to see

28. The color of my reproachers turned black,
After whiteness and pallor have passed

29. Over them, motley and faded.
The cold has not withered me, else

30. It would have changed and renewed me!
Were it not for your charges, I would not

31. Give the times my halter.
Nor incline my neck

32. To the nights as game.
An innate disposition, from a hero

33. Who kept to what he was wont.
He swore allegiance to the horizons of the spear

34. And knotted the lote-tree.
I took counsel with a stubborn heart,

35. And it said to me: “Do not yield!”
For I am of a folk who have surpassed

36. In glory and bounty the farthest end;
Valiant, when the transgressor transgresses,

37. Noble, when the generous gives.
They branched out the lofty peak

38. And the craggy mountain.
Their glory is more ancient

39. Than the ridge of Qinan as a place of birth.
True of speech for the sword

40. And provision when called upon.
When the night prowler is guided by their fire,

41. An unguided prowler is not guided.
They warred over the encampments

42. And cast lots over the spoils.
With a raid in the litter

43. That awakens the living who were asleep,
Which sets ablaze ripe herbage

44. Or plunders a lofty sanctuary,
As though I launch it against them

45. Now dual, now singular.
An invader who hurls into the fray of battle

46. Pebbles, helter-skelter.
The youth’s spear-shaft

47. Suffices him instead of his whip when he charges.
As though his horseman

48. Were felling a yellow wolf.
I strip off from its page

49. The thorns of the spear, deliberately.
Had you but smelled it when it lightened

50. The water of the dogs, it would have reddened it.
And every long-necked stallion

51. Seeking wide plains for his echo.
More enduring than his tusks

52. When the coward takes fright.
Going forth, so if he catches wind

53. Of the scent of injustice, he is distracted.
He meets the pursued in panic

54. As the pursued meets pursuit.

55. I am the Qurashi lad
Who brought forth praise though not begotten of it.

56. I drew my bucket before you
To Iraq in vessels.

57. My resolve has not ceased keeping me
Far from the abode of disgrace.

58. Banishing me from a land
And a land pelting me with clods!

59. If attaining what you wish is not possible,
Then seek, when you reach the watering-place, to turn away.