1. My eyelids refused to close or prepare for sleep, and my side remained awake, while my eyes persisted in their burning and my heart in its wakefulness.
So my heart is a heart that fears no criticism, and my eyes are eyes that dryness cannot desiccate.

2. My companion blames me for the sun in the east, while I am the sun that the west has gained.
Between me and intimacy after you and fulfillment are hostility and my tormentor and the auspiciousness of fate.

3. I have an obsession with you all that goes astray and does not find the way.
I have a burning for you all that is suppressed and does not show.

4. Reproach walked into my hearing, turning its face away, so where is love between one who turns away and one who turns aside?
We both have intoxication and sobriety in his intoxication, so he has no core and we have no core.

5. By my soul in which there is harm and wine with which I am intoxicated, and my drinking is not complete.
I see it like the mirage of the thirsty, who see irrigation by it if only the pouring would be realized.

6. And what would happen if passion fulfilled its covenant, for whether or not, love has already fulfilled its promise.
My tears are a procession escorting the authority of that countenance, cleansing their cheeks just as soil is known to cloak.

7. In them, nearness and distance are equal; a near thing yet no nearness, a far thing yet no distance.
Estrangement is his from her whether she turns away or draws near, and the confirmation of her news bearer brings the young man no joy.

8. For this passion there is an easy door to enter, just as there was, however exiting is what is difficult.
And in life there is a meaning the ignorant do not know.

9. O you sleepers, awake now and stand up!
Though the caller has stood to call against passion most have responded, while I inclined toward it though others do not incline.

10. With a generous cloudburst for the rain-clouds after their absence, the dragging and rain showers cross her horizon.
Without means he comes to the hopeful one, so intercession and earning do not busy the people.

11. It is the shooting star, illumination on the day it penetrates through wishes, speedily, for if you treat it equitably, it is the rain-clouds.
It knows the world with Him has no harm, and accompanies a lifetime with Him bearing no fault.

12. So may He preserve our hearts as subjects, for over their sovereignty frustration holds no sway.
And may the earthly life not lack a victorious hand under which fertility and barrenness die and live.

13. Within His heart is benevolence and mercy for the people, and within their hearts awe of Him and love.
He gives boundlessly and flows endlessly, so both successor and antecedent benefit through Him.

14. This grace is as generous as life has been generous, and features flourish from it as herbage flourished on the dunes.
The greatest books cannot enumerate His least deeds, even if books contained all that books contain.

15. His actions, when you attempt to count His glory, suffice you my saying none can comprehend His dignity.
He tended me, may God tend him, a most honorable company, while the full moon of perfection missed out on companions.

16. And He transformed me from a state in which I pined for mercy into a state that has shook out its splendid mantle.
And He brought me from the sitting of intimacy into a presence in which my life is lowered while my worth is raised.

17. So my eye sees the kingdom of Chosroes and his threshold, and my ear hears those purest of Arabic utterances.
The beautiful people parted from me while attachment to the sweet natured only increased for me.

18. The hostile fate I had was warring with me, but with you hostility and war have laid down their burdens.
I have attained the bounties of grace, through the nearness of which no kind of eminence has escaped my eye.

19. So O grief, there is hostility then no peace thereafter! And O fate, there is peace so we have no grievance thereafter!
I rode the ship with hands on oars plunging on towering surges so that their edges leapt.

20. No migration but the sea with its purity, so never mention the meteors for they are no meteors!
You direct the meteors on land while riding, but at sea the meteors direct you.

21. If they say the sea is repose for riders, then say to me “With how much effort on land do riders toil?”
Judgment runs in every circumstance over the heart, and no body rests when the heart toils.

22. The ships have white sails while anchored in a harbor, stirring in souls slander and harm.
As if we were letters with the ships as lines, and the north wind rolls them while the waves compile them into books.

23. I traveled to one whose abode adversity does not overturn, a smooth journey though plunging and peril make the riding beast stumble.
O meadow, do not be deceived by your greenery and wishes, neither your soothing shade nor your lively plants.

24. O sea, what are all these bubbles? Neither your spreading expanse nor your fresh water.
By God you are no carrier, though worries run through your imagination, of the burden that He carries.

25. So why this anxiety and fuss? What alarmed and alarmed us but surging waves, confused and muddled?
O wind, in its blowing there is no tranquility by which the drowned may be saved and the riders not drowned.

26. We have four that have not come with four: Words that deliver them and hearts that deliver them.
Hope yet no affliction, aid yet no passion, sincerity yet no deceit, description yet no lies.

27. While in you are fruits the like of which we have come with, that if mentioned the soil listens eagerly for their drops.
Forbearance which is piety, giving which is wealth, restraint which is supremacy, and manner which is vastness.

28. Insight which is blessing, opinion which is guidance, paths which are ideal, and a head which is resolve.
The finest thing in the sea is its drop of pearl, so apart from you is my stringing, itself your juicy pearl.

29. Of early comers, when their first lights seek permission, coverings take flight from them.
Easy discourse with which wishes are facilitated, and eloquent preaching with which sermons are facilitated.

30. It gently flows so the morning breeze hides confidentialities conveyed by it that make the youth shiver.
I unsheathe it as a sword against fate whenever recitals of it are repeated and the strokes redoubled.

31. If people before me called you stars, then these appeared when the axis turned in your horizon.
The people have copied my poetry and plastered over it afterwards copious things out of their love.

32. I went forth; no deterrer deterred my going forth, nor did repeating elegy refrain elegy’s resolve.
So neither the hazards nor the deterrents are feared. Who is Tha’lab when I determine, and who is flame?

33. Either acceptance, so prominence above the sky, or refusal, so death and dust.
If Thamud claimed all the water, say to destiny “Woe to it, the pouring is excessive!”

34. Counsel them that the water is apportioned by justice, so I have a drink one day after them, and they have a drink.