1. Our beloveds have caused us so much anguish, so make us happy
And do not decide to keep us up at night while you sleep

2. My eyelids have certainly become sutured with grief over you
And my eyelid has become like kohl smeared in darkness

3. So do not pretend to be truly faithful, for we
Are awake during a night in which you are bundled up

4. And do not deny the right of yearning, for indeed
For us and for you the stars of the night bear witness

5. With your sweet words we were deceived, yet your actions
Appear farther than a star rising on the horizon

6. We see ourselves as arrows in love, and we see you
As shields, so you never draw near except to distance yourselves

7. Every night I remain wakeful, grieved
As if my eyelids on it are outstretched

8. So its pleats are folds, and its stars
Have spent the night like tent pegs hammered down

9. So my sleep is gone from my eyes, and my heart is gone from longing
And my body is gone from the homelands, each one banished

10. An emigrant protecting her intent as her description
And the origin of union from her grows cold and lifeless

11. My gaze travels until when it reaches
Her face after traveling, it becomes constrained

12. The lights were reflected from Ghada’s face
For her is a cheek like a rose and a flushed veil

13. And I did not forget her on the day of parting, and her tears
Flowed down while the sighs from her rose up

14. And her eyelid, which covered her cheek with its pearls, was generous
And her neck, which was bare of pearls, was graceful

15. With two necklaces, a necklace dissolved not in its place
And a strung necklace dissolved where it should be strung

16. So I said to her while the Pleiades were setting, and her pearls
Resembled among them what melts and what solidifies

17. You have adorned your cheek in the severity of parting
With that with which the adorned one adorns himself

18. So indeed the patience was plundered from my chest weakly
The vanguard of a separating army whose tomorrow is coming

19. And the flowing tears poured down from me youthfully
So my cheek from it became wet and furrowed

20. And if my tear flows alongside her tear in its whiteness
While beneath it the fire of my soul is kindled

21. Then the tear is not to me water dripping from the eye
Rather, it is a melting heart rising up

22. Yearning to see the beloved, my heart set out searching
So my inner self became envious of my eye

23. It employed thought until a way to them appeared to it
A way made smooth in the tears

24. So a branch from it continues to slip out
From the imprisonment of my ribs and ascend

25. My covenants in life have all changed
So none remains as was promised, no pact kept

26. Of my burdens, there remains only pretension
And of my patience, only feigned patience stays

27. I see between my days and my hair, there has appeared
For my quickening demise, again renewed contradiction

28. For I have become black while my hair is white
And my pact with her white while my hair black

29. Misfortunes have done to me what was enough that they were aided
Against me by eras that repeated tribulations against me

30. And treacherous brothers—but far from their nobility—
While they were esteemed, banded with fate

31. And the traces of shackles succeeded until they left
For people no celebrated traces to this day

32. And my masters—after separation tore
Us and them apart, and the house draws near then retreats—

33. When I desire a step or steps towards them
My legs disobey, and my hands do not comply

34. I have been tested, but in Baghdad I have a friend
Noble, when I see him I am made anew

35. Whenever I am in a riding party and they perform
Pilgrimage to his house, journeying purposefully to him and preparing

36. And they have known the ritual purity from their condition, so from
Their means, they are stripped of all but hope

37. Their travel garments move with the light of his loyalty
And their guide among them sings my praises

38. Perhaps I will gain from Zawra’ a visit
And a return to the pact with it I once kept

39. And fulfill by the victory of God that I see
Through it one who has become the supporter of the religion

40. The fasting of creation is a month, and an epoch away from creation
Until I see him, my confirmed fasting

41. And no feast except the day I go early and my sights
Are upon the face of the Judge of the two abodes, celebrating

42. The Trustworthy of the Commander of the Faithful, whom He chose
And the guided arrow of the Commander of the Faithful

43. The collected remnants of the eminent, so when
The thousands of the eminent become through one, he is the only one

44. He is considered manifestly one, yet he is a nation
And he wakes in the gathering of creation, yet he is singular

45. For him are the magnificent, dazzling feats which have become
Fertile ground for the envious because of them

46. So in the sole of a slipper beneath which the new crescent
Became for him through it the months of time enumerated

47. And by his threading, his steps left their mark
By which for him the supreme footstep wherever deliberated

48. And he dragged across the stars a train
Which the celestial tower adorned itself with

49. Guiding pillars were erected from it upon the roads of eminence
By them, when people seek guidance, they are guided

50. And the means to all purposes were
The steps of horses, no purpose from them veers

51. And a gait upon the carpets of each noble woman
And a trotting by foot to hand outpacing

52. And a gaze which is the wind by which
Solomon once flowed, but embodied

53. So today through him songs make the steps forget
Happy thoughts through them time rises above

54. The steed of enlightened opinion spends the night from him and its thought
By it ascends in the sky of the kingdom and climbs

55. Good fortune stretches to him to a pen of his
Which is the possession and the pens altogether worship

56. He has a throne in the kingdom, secrets of his palm
So in it for the pens of creation is devotion

57. For the order and prohibition of the Commander of the Faithful
You see time from it watching and waiting

58. And it becomes a representative tongue for his tongue
So from him it issues what he wills and presents

59. When he directs the pens of creation, and their palms
Are places of worship, and the pens in them worship

60. Their inkwells out of fear for the duration of time congealed
And their heads voluntarily for the duration of time bowed

61. For the kingdom of the Abbasids coursing with their spiritedness
So for their effort a kingdom aided praises

62. O you who emptied the world and dominated its men
And the world was not emptied while he was master

63. A letter has come to me from you in whose chest
Was set precious speech, beside which pearls pale

64. So in its prose were exceptional uniquely crafted jewels
And in its verse were wildly wandering treasures

65. My eyes were confused by it, then my thoughts
When that essence scattered before me sparkled

66. And it distilled camphor with musk, so its scent
To this day remains in my hand, inexhaustible

67. Wonders traced by the pen of the most generous writer
A hand which, whenever it writes, we praise it

68. The unique in the styles of speech undisputedly surrender
To him the meanings and the heights without parallel

69. So its words are soaring knots, all of them
And in their meanings no meaning convoluted

70. And even if I attempted an answer
I was bewildered by it, writhing

71. For it is absurd for my expression to pretend
To parallel its miraculous quality, so practiced

72. But when I was pierced by a glimpse
And the sea of your nobility—the essence of pearls—naturally foams

73. I made my answer to it quoting from it
And how many a thief is surely unpunished by the stolen

74. And none was seen before me, a diver who returned his pearl
To its sea, a quality familiar to him

75. Nor do I claim to circulate for myself a counterfeit
While one like you appraises

76. But my allegiance is as if I believed
That no test will falsify it, my pact confirmed

77. And whatever praise to you I have uttered
Your generosity is more brilliant and bountiful

78. And each subtle witticism from my praise and birth
Is matched by a subtle witticism from your bounty and birth

79. So O master, none has contended with his like
For one of nobility one day among the people contended

80. Your father named Abdullah has become his name
For the duration of time a description of his son, undeniable

81. He became glorious only because of your son, you
For if counted in all creation, from him most glorious

82. So the elevation of Abdul Karim Muhammad was adorned
And the elevation of Abdul Karim increased, Muhammad

83. And never in the horizon has a full moon and stars
Gathered as they gathered for man, self and aspiration

84. And your noblest son whom you became in him and he in you
United, raised the children of the kingdom, the most sublime

85. Crescent moons diminish next to him
And the cubs of black forest from him withdraw, isolated

86. So may you remain, facing from his sons tribes
That exalt your noble call and provoke zeal

87. And may there continue rejoicing, a pleasant life
That gathers for you unity, and an undying kingdom