1. We circled around the Kaaba of your beauty
An antelope kept from grazing in her pasture

2. I approached seeking pasture, confused
She frowned and turned away haughtily

3. So she bolted and recoiled from me; I was robbed
Of my senses, held captive by her allure

4. I asked her to show mercy to an ardent lover
A fire, arrows pierce the eyelids that behold her

5. You have tormented me with your love after piercing
My innermost being with arrows of ignorance

6. Alas! Alas! That I live on now that she has won
My heart, my mind and my soul in her dwelling

7. So I lie in wait for her at every slope
Perplexed, not tending to my mount, urging it on

8. Do not blame my agitation when she wanders
Imagine if she unveiled her hidden beauty

9. By God, did your soul inform you of my state
Alas! Alas! The cruelty of separation is extreme

10. I came to her from her in utter need and hoped
To kiss her right hand then her left

11. I asked her in true love to forgive me
What I gained in Canaan and Syria

12. O Lord I have sinned in love but I intend
Only good thoughts of you to guide me

13. By God, if my soul left me I would not stop
Seeking the vestiges of her way and her camp

14. I cried from the sadness of my heart and said
Beware of recoiling from her sweet fragrance

15. She is a bough bent with the weight of her cover
While my heart still flutters above her

16. She has a trysting-place in the thickets none share,
Neither in her world nor the next

17. So cease to imagine and erase the profusion
Of fancies, and leave not her sins extant

18. Heal the divisions of the sundered and remove
The speck of doubt that makes me see double

19. I cried from the grief of my heart, and said
O heart! How many captives pine for her

20. It said: “No hands of fate have played with any
Like mine, no matter how high her lineage

21. In love, none purpose but to see the annihilation
Of reason in the bewildered by her charms

22. We are orphans in the lap of love, and how much
They have sinned against us, breaking their vows

23. I asked her: where is my heart when you pierced
Me wandering? She said: “I see it at her pasture

24. So she examined me and said: “What heart do you see?”
I said: “Woe! The nearest and most wretched.”

25. You want my union in the thickets of Al-Arak,
But the perfection of beauty transports her

26. Wherever she turns, her face is to it
We find for her every house and song

27. Between affirmation and denial you see them:
Perplexed, between essence and attribute in her mirror

28. Beware to uncover your veil, for we only
Yearn for union that we may see your face