1. How can one who is lovesick listen to a blamer or incline,
Smitten, his cheeks thinning and body wasting?

2. I am preoccupied with love, even not thinking of love,
What then can the blamer possibly say?

3. For love there is a battle that angers the critic
And in which the slain is content.

4. O beauty who owns me, what can
The owned and the owner accomplish?

5. Without attaining union with you are tribulations
That become easier each time I face them.

6. To the sharpened swords belong striking, to the spearheads stabbing, and to the steeds neighing,
Where has intimacy gone? Nay, where was estrangement? How can the lowly attain it?

7. If my eyes complain of the long night,
I say, gentle, the winter night is long.

8. What aids me regarding passion except lamenting?
In calamities he is a lion who attacks.

9. By whom was time battled with a sword?
And by whom was brotherhood sought with a friend?

10. O abundant in kindness, indeed abundant
In praise for what you comprise is little.

11. And generous in kindness, harm has not touched you
When debasement has come to you - it is stingy.

12. I have witnesses of loyalty and virtue
That from your love I have no deviance.

13. Do not blame me if I fell short in praise
For my excuse with people is acceptable.

14. Can a tongue encompass a description of you
In which the literal and figurative expire?