قتيل هواك ليس يروم ثاره

فصدّي تارة وصليه تاره

He whom your love has slain seeks no revenge.

So turn away at times, and at times grant him union.

عسى تلك الخزازة من فؤادي

تزول وتنطفي تلك الحراره

Perhaps that bitterness within my heart

will vanish, and that heat be quenched.

ألا ان الهوى فيه هوان

وان الحلو منه ذو مراره

Lo, there is humiliation in love,

and its sweetness holds bitterness.

فهل خل يعير الصب دمعا

ليجلو الانسجام بالاستعاره

Will some friend, then, lend the lovesick lover tears,

so he may display their flow through borrowing?

بروحي جيرة مذ رققوني

تملك مهجتي منهن جاره

My soul for those neighbors! Since they enthralled me,

one neighbor among them has possessed my heart.

من الخضر الحسان اذا تبدت

تشوقك في البداوة والحضاره

One of the dark-complexioned beauties—when she appears,

she stirs your longing, in desert and city alike.

علينا الحسن امرها وها قد

لها صرنا عبيدا بالاماره

Beauty has made her ruler over us, and behold,

we have become her slaves beneath her rule.

تراءت في الخمار فخلت بدرا

تبدى مشرقا وعليه داره

She appeared in her veil; I fancied a full moon

had appeared, shining, with a halo round it.

ويعبس لحظها فأقول شنّت

بنو عبس على العشاق غاره

Her glance scowls, and I say: "A raid has been launched

by Banu ʿAbs against the lovers!"

لها ردف تقاعد عن وصالي

وأثقله النهوض عن الزياره

Her hips hang back from union with me,

and the burden of rising keeps them from a visit.

وخصر قد تلطف في اختصار

فيا للّه ما احلى اختصاره

And a waist grown delicate in its slenderness—

O God, how sweet its slenderness!

وقد قد تفرد بالتثني

وقد جمع الرشاقة والنضاره

And a figure unrivaled in its swaying,

and uniting grace with blooming freshness.

وخد جلنار الروض ابدى

ومن تلك النهود غدت ثماره

And a cheek displaying the garden's pomegranate bloom,

and from those breasts its fruits have taken shape.

وثغر قد روى النظام عنه

والف من بدائعه ابتكاره

And a mouth from which the versifier has drawn his lore,

and fashioned his original creation from its marvels.

وجفن قد حكى جسمي سقاما

وما اقوى على ضعفي اقتداره

And an eyelid matching my body in sickness—

yet how strong its power over my weakness!

ومن عجب لقد اضحى كسيراً

وابغي في الهوى منه انتصاره

And strangely, it has become broken,

yet in love I seek its aid for victory.

ولا عجب هواها كيف ينمو

فان النار اولها شراره

Nor is it strange how love for her keeps growing,

for fire begins as a spark.

صغار الدر قد نظمت بفيها

وذاك الدر ما احلى صغاره

Small pearls have been strung in her mouth,

and those pearls—how sweet the little ones are!

اشبب بالرباب هوى وسعدى

وعليا يا اخا هند وساره

I sing, out of love, of al-Rabāb and Saʿdā,

and ʿUlyā, O brother of Hind and Sarah.

وهل هاتيك لو تدري وهذي

وتلك وذي سوى اسما اشاره

And are that one—if you only knew—and this one,

and that one and this, anything but demonstrative pronouns?

اجارة من جفاك وفرط هجر

اجار اللّه مضناكي اجاره

O neighbor, from your coldness and excessive desertion,

may God shelter your love-worn sufferer—shelter him!