صب همى فوق القطيعة شانه

فغدا وأوصاف القطيعة شانه

A lovesick man whose tears streamed over estrangement,

Until the marks of estrangement left him marred.

ودموعه من بعدما كتم الهوى

نمت بها ووشت بها اجفانه

And his tears, after he had concealed his love—

His eyelids told of them and gave them away.

والحب منه قد تملك رقه

وعليه مال مع الهوى سلطانه

Love has taken him into bondage,

And its power, siding with passion, turned against him.

من لي به شاكي السلام قوامه

عسالة وسناله وسنانه

Who will bring him to me, his stature bristling with arms,

A swaying lance—[wording unclear]—and his spearpoint?

متمايل الاعطاف رنحه الصبا

جذلان من خمر الصبا نشوانه

Swaying in his limbs, made to reel by the east wind,

Joyful, intoxicated with the wine of youth.

ريان ساجي المحظ ذبله الكرى

ومن العجائب ذابل ريانه

Well-watered, with a languid gaze that slumber made droop;

How wondrous that his well-watered gaze should wilt!

ظبي فؤادي خده وحشاشتي

مرعى له ومدامعي غدرانه

A gazelle: my heart is his covert, and my life's breath

His pasture, while my tears are his pools.

لو لم يكن من جلنار خده

ما شاقني من نهده رمانه

Were his cheek not made of pomegranate blossom,

The pomegranate of his breast would not have stirred my longing.

في وجهه بستان حسن ناضر

انسان ناظر مقلتي حنانه

In his face is a flourishing garden of beauty;

The pupil of my eye is its gardener.

والخد فيه الورد بان محققا

والصدغ فيه مسلسل ريحانه

Upon his cheek the rose appears unmistakably,

And at his temple its basil hangs in chains.

والخال حين به تبدى اسودا

ايقنت ان شقيقه نعمانه

And when the mole appeared black upon it,

I knew its blossom to be Nu‘man's anemone.

واذا بدا متبمسا عن ثغره

فالند ترخص عنده اثمانه

And when he appears with his mouth parted in a smile,

The prices of perfume fall beside him.

منه تذكرني الشبيبة بارقا

بالمنحنى من اضلعي خفقانه

Youth recalls for me a lightning-flash from him,

Its flickering within the curve of my ribs.

يا قده يا ردفه لولاكما

ما شاقني ذاك الكثيب وبانه

O his stature, O his buttocks—were it not for you both,

That sand dune and its ban-tree would not have stirred my longing.

يا قاتل الله العذول الى متى

يلقي السو بمسمعي شيطانه

May God confound the reproacher! How long

Will his devil cast evil into my hearing?

انا لست اسلو عن ربيع وصاله

ان الحبيب محرم سلوانه

I do not forget the springtime of union with him;

Indeed, forgetting the beloved is forbidden.