سَقياً لظبي كالرمح في عدلِه

طوراً وطوراً كالغصن في ميَلِه

A drinker buck, spear-straight in his poise

Blessings on a gazelle, straight as a spear in his stance,

Incline by incline, like a branch in its bend

Who sways, now and then, like a willow branch in his dance.

أهيفَ مرتجةٍ روادفهُ

يذوبُ من غمزه ومن خجَلِه

With a restless, pacing gait

Slender-waisted he is, yet his buttocks quiver and quake,

Melting from his flirt and his shyness

Melting away in the coyness and shyness he'd fake.

داعبتهُ ضاحكاً فغلّظَ لي

تغليظَ مولىً يسطو على خَوله

I teased him laughing, so he played hard to get

I teased him with laughter, but he turned harsh and rude,

The play of a lord exerting mastery over his boy

With the wrath of a master who strikes at his servitude.

وكنتُ عفّاً لا أشتهيهِ ولا

أصبو إلى نيكِهِ ولا قُبَلِه

And I was chaste, desiring him not

Yet I was chaste, I desired not his embrace,

Nor aspiring to his intimacy or his kiss

Neither lusting to bed him, nor to kiss his face.

فاضطرّ في ذاكَ من مقالتهِ

إلى احتيالٍ أدقّ من حِيَلِه

So he was forced by my attitude

But his haughty words compelled me, against my intent,

To a cunning subtler than his tricks

To a ruse more subtle than the tricks he had sent.

فلم أزل بالرُقى أدرّجهُ

تدريجَ طيرٍ لطالبي زَجَلِه

And I did not cease to gently seduce him

I coaxed him with charms, leading him near,

Seduce him gradually like a bird its fledglings

As one lures a bird for the song one would hear.

حتى إذا ما حملتُ معتدلاً

فوق يدي خُرجيه مع ثقلِه

Until when I had him balanced

Until, when I bore him up, balanced and spread,

Above my hands, his thighs with their weight

His saddlebags weighing my hands like lead,

طعنتهُ فانثنى فقلتُ له

والرمح منّي في العينِ من كفَلِه

I stabbed him and he crumpled, and I said to him

I thrust, and he bent; I spoke near his ear,

“By my spear in your eye if you but kick”

While my spear was lodged in the eye of his rear:

إصبر إذا عضّكَ الزمانُ ومَن

أصبرُ عند الزمانِ من رجلِه

“Be patient if Time bites you, for none

"Bear patience when Time sinks its teeth in your span,

Is more patient with Time than its stallion”

For who faces Time with more patience than a man?"