1. ماله ايقظ الشجون فقاست

    وحشة الليل واستثار الخيالا

    What ails him? He awakened sorrows, and harsher grew

    the loneliness of night, and he stirred the imagination.

  2. ماله فى مواكب الليل يمشى

    ويناجى اشباحه والظلالا

    What ails him, walking in the processions of night,

    and communing with its phantoms and shadows?

  3. هين تستخفه بسمة الطفل

    قوي يصارع الاجيالا

    Gentle, a child's smile carries him away;

    strong, he wrestles with generations.

  4. حاسر الرأس عند كل جمال

    مستشف من كل شئ جمالا

    Bareheaded before every beauty,

    discerning beauty in everything.

  5. ماجن حطم القيود وصوفى

    قضى العمر نشوة وابتهالا

    A libertine who shattered the chains, and a Sufi

    who spent his life in rapture and supplication.

  6. خلقت طينة الأسى وغشتها

    نار وجد فاصبحت صلصالا

    The clay of sorrow was created and enveloped

    by the fire of yearning, and so became resonant clay.

  7. ثم صاح القضاء كونى فكانت

    طينة البؤس شاعراً مثالا

    Then Fate cried, 'Be!'—and it became—

    that clay of misery—a poet-sculptor.

  8. يتغنى مع الرياح اذاغنت

    فيشجى خميله والتلالا

    He sings with the winds when they sing,

    and so saddens his grove and the hills.

  9. صاغ من كل ربوة منبراً يسكب

    فى سمعه الشجون الطوالا

    He fashioned from every hill a pulpit that pours

    long-drawn sorrows into his hearing.

  10. هو طفل شاد الرمال قصورا

    هى آماله ودك الرمالا

    He is a child who built palaces of sand;

    they are his hopes—and he leveled the sand.

  11. كالعود ينفح العطر للناس

    ويفنى تحرقاً واشتعالا

    Like aloeswood, he wafts fragrance to people,

    and wastes away, burning and blazing.