فرارُكما بالأمس بغَّضني أمسي

ولو قلتما لي كان أطيبَ للنفسِ

Your flight yesterday made me loathe my yesterday;

Had you but told me, it would have been kinder to the soul.

وما جازَ ما جاوزتماه ولم يكن

ليذهب تلبيسٌ على معدن اللُّبسِ

What you overstepped was not permissible, nor could

deception work upon guile’s very wellspring.

توحشتما مني لأنسي إليكما

فلم تُنصفاني في التوحُّش من أنسي

You grew estranged from me because I felt at home with you;

You did me no justice—estranging yourselves from my warmth.

ولولا انبساطي لم تكونا انقبضتما

فكافأتُماني في المودة بالعكس

Had I not been so openhearted, you would never have withdrawn;

Thus you repaid my affection with its opposite.

ومن يبخس الإخوانَ بعض حقوقهم

فذاك حقيق أن يكافوه بالبخس

Whoever shortchanges his friends in some of their rights

deserves that they repay him with the same short measure.

ولولا حيائي منكما كنتُ واصفاً

فعالكما وصفاً يُخلَّد في الطرس

Were I not ashamed before you, I would have described

your conduct in words immortalized upon the page.

ولكن إذا جيشٌ من الكيد راعني

جثوت له من محكم الصبر في تُرسِ

But when an army of guile alarms me,

I crouch against it behind a shield of tempered patience.

فقل لحبيبٍ لا أُحب جفاءه

عين الشمس يا مُشبه الشمس

Then tell a beloved whose coldness I cannot love:

“O eye of the sun, O likeness of the sun!”