1. In the springtime of my youth, it was all peace
Whenever the thunder rumbled.

2. The clouds watered it with pouring rain -
An ever-flowing, generous downpour.

3. It was a time when I mastered every art
And contended with the most excellent.

4. I returned to what I had gained from it,
So I and others were generous.

5. Yet people turned against me for this,
And the envious are darker than those they envy.

6. They see me following no doctrine
They think truth is what ancestors have said.

7. And they reject the word of purity -
Each one of them has strayed from it.

8. So they said, "So-and-so has come among us
With perplexing, destructive heresies."

9. I say the truth is the Qur’an, and the word
Of the best of Messengers, not idle talk.

10. Thus I spoke, and every doctrine
Other than these two is refuted.

11. This is the source of sages before me,
And all of them came to its springs.

12. When a person denies my excellence and nobility,
He has always been among the ignorant.

13. And when any youth gains knowledge
And rises step by step,

14. Subduing unruly souls in every art
And leading all who stray,

15. The inadequate attack him with every fault
And armies rise against him from their ranks.

16. But they return defeated, and every scheme
Of theirs rebounds upon themselves.

17. They sought to undermine his station, but were
Themselves witnesses to his lofty honor.

18. When God decrees the diffusion of someone’s virtue,
He will have to contend with envy.

19. The more virtuous he is, the more he is opposed
And the greater the denial of his qualities.

20. When absent, some speak ill of him
While in his presence they bow down.

21. They never fault him but for what
Can itself be faulted and refuted.

22. A dog's barking cannot harm the moon,
Nor do zebras fear roaring lions.

23. The towering pinnacle is not diminished
When mere termites crawl upon its sides.

24. The ocean deep is never blamed
When monkeys splash about its shores.