قامر باللهو في هوى قمر — Kashajim

He gambled with pleasure in love with a moon,

And won union with full moons through the full moon.

And in rapture deflowered his pleasure's virgins,

Between wine-filled evenings and early mornings.

No day is like this day, brought forth for us

By its gardens in resplendent embroidered robes.

A day when the dark steed of Time prances, through

Its beauty, with white fetlock markings and forehead blazes.

A joy whose measure holds no shriveled dates,

And pleasure whose purity is free of cloudiness.

The tent of clouds has already been pitched for us,

And the breeze's army has been sprinkled with rain.

And with us are two mature maidens, one red as the

Sun, and the other yellow as the moon.

Two virgins: this one faulted for old age,

Plain to see, and this one faulted for youth.

A wine so ancient that

Adam, the father of humankind, was its presser.

And a secluded maiden whose form shows you

Night's full moon in her fragrant robe.

She sang plaintively over her lute, while there flowed

Our wine, an ember without sparks.

The serving girls circulate among us with it, having been

Garlanded in revelry with necklaces of flowers.

They were each adorned with two earrings when unveiled to us,

With their temple-locks and forelocks curled like scorpions.

O you who forsake your day's sweetness for tomorrow,

You barter joy itself for its trace.

If cares have wronged your heart, there is nothing

Like taking revenge with flute and string.

And a young gazelle whose sidelong glances were bewildered

By the glances of the gazelle's eye in dialogue.

I was compelled to love him, so that I might excuse him;

So if he shuns me, I plead fate.

I asked him for a visit, and he granted it generously;

And all this through the tongues of the gaze.

So I gained my wish by sipping his saliva,

And my heart's desire through other pleasures.