1. They said the toothpick of youth has appeared,
So I said: Now is the time, it has come.

2. Dearer grows what of my love was once cheap
After esteem and humbleness.

3. It appeared, so my affair with it grew complex -
Very complex, though I wished to make it pliant.

4. I will fill the house with tears as
I filled the home of my heart with sorrows.

5. The house is no home when one who dwelt there
Has gone from it and the neighbors no neighbors.

6. A house where I plucked the fruits of pleasure
From a branch bearing an orchard.

7. How often has dawn's sun within it
Lain with me, and the full moon kept me company!

8. Days of union followed by sorrow -
Would they had never been!

9. Such is the way of life - how it has severed
Ties of kinship and brotherhood from us.

10. How many past and present has love of it
Misguided after maturity and youth!

11. An old malady in the sons of Adam -
That man should love man.

12. Before me Jarir's heart was ever
Thirsty for the dweller in the thickets.

13. And my heart pines for a sweet damsel
Who ties her girdle high at the waist.

14. The reproacher found fault with her affair -
I think my reproacher blind.

15. Her beauty made me believe in miracles,
For I saw clear proof.

16. At every time her face shines
As if clothed in faith.

17. Her limbs concur in beauty
And are equal in loveliness.

18. The down on her cheek proclaims
It shows apples' hues.

19. I did not know before her apples
That fragrance was in Lebanon.