1. My longing for Egypt once kept me sleepless.

    So today I have returned, and Egypt is once more my home.

  2. I go in the morning to spacious Giza for morning wine,

    At times; at others I make my way toward Shiraz.

  3. While I vie with a chief in his rank,

    Then by evening I am reckoned a wine-seller in the taverns.

  4. So my mornings belong to the bureaus, and my return

    Is to houses of doll-like beauties who play the strings,

  5. And of a young gazelle of Coptic stock who ties

    A girdle between the sand dune and the bān-tree branch.

  6. As for Time, I have kept company with its wildness,

    And I have fulfilled desires and wishes.

Sol 6.1