يا ربع لو كنت دمعا فيك منسكبا

O campsite, if you were tears spilled within you, I would have spent my allotted life without fulfilling what was due.

Let your worn-out campsite not deny the wasting of my body, for I have drunk from love's cup what it drank.

And if my tears had flowed according to their proper due, I would have made a weeping spring gush from every single limb.

My time with you was a flourishing meadow for delight, but now the early-morning clouds weep in lamentation.

So may the companion of the cloud's eyelid water you with a shower, clothing the earth's hills in the light of blossoming meads.

Possessing a lightning flash drawn like al-Sahib's swords, and a downpour as generous as his gifts when he bestows.

And a faction within whom spite burned hot, while they hoisted for me ranks above the very necks of nobility.

I was Joseph while the brothers were they—and you are the father of the tribes, while their claim was false blood.

The cur may bark as long as it meets no desert lion, but the moment it sees a lion, it flees away.

I see your encampments lost in stringing rhymes together, while I see no desire for myself outside of high nobility.

Turn away from poetry, for poetry is a shortcoming for one of high standing, and bring forth instead true glory and noble ancestry.

For poetry is far too short to stretch one's stature with, whether it was innovated from scratch or composed on the spot.

I journey away from you while in every joint of mine there is a mouth that thanks you, running with a sharp-edged tongue.

Whoever seeks the sunlight where it rises, and whoever seeks the path of the rainstorm where it pours.

Truly I yearn to stay in your shelter just as your right hand yearns to give to those who ask.

Yet my tongue yearns to travel away from you so that it may blanket the earth with chosen praise of you.

I imagine myself among my family and the people as a stranger, the moment I depart from your dwelling as an exile.