1. Though they told you tales of it
And separation has descended in its abode

2. The nights of Ibn Qabis between the tents
Vying with the sky through its moons

3. Why then do you recall those abodes
And why do you weep to remember them

4. In the ribs are chaste hearts
And passion has clung to their vestiges

5. Hearts we startled with them to tears
That the tears did not quench their fires

6. The singing girls shake for them the tuneful lutes
When they whisper their secrets

7. May God tend those palaces
And adorn the sky with their lights

8. Its neighbor spends the night yearning for it
Though it did not yearn for its neighbor

9. Palaces whose days reveal
The coquetry of gardens in their prime

10. When dawn rises, intelligence awakens
Suns obscured by their veils

11. Due to the gentleness of their dwellers
They almost return greetings to their visitors

12. They taught them to captivate hearts
And cleave the breasts of their gazers

13. The vicissitudes of fate have pardoned them
And clad them in their burdens

14. Encircling their wrists like a bracelet
Are gardens perfected by their walls

15. Their rivers mimic the Milky Way
And their flowers narrate the stars

16. Winter clothed them in spring robes
And buttoned them with its pearls

17. When the morning breeze rises in them
Their birds chant with their tongues

18. And if shade seeks refuge in them
Their trees refuse it hospitality

19. And if boon companions settle in them
They see their nights like their dawns

20. The breeze strokes for them the treetops
And they spend the night lamenting their strings

21. And made them forget the temple and passion
And roused the singers with their poems

22. And the people of separation and a beloved's memory
And spurred the riding-beasts with their reins

23. The sky watered them with what they crave
And was generous to them with its rain