1. The tryst of love we once made
My patience fails when I recall it

2. Neither can I forget it and question
Nor you remember it and nurture it

3. If it could be ransomed to be seen again
What is gone of life we would ransom

4. So let my tears in their flow give it drink
For they are most worthy of watering it

5. O you who unjustly killed me by estranging
Your estrangement - how much it kills me!

6. Today we will scatter the blame that
We once gathered and folded

7. You recall how many nights we had
Your earring adorned them as pearls

8. I stayed awake with you in play though
Sleep of separation had stitched my eyelid

9. Your mouth and cheek in its corner
Were water for my brother passion and its pasture

10. I remained in the pleasure of your company
Until dawn came to bid it farewell,

11. And the stars had shut their eyelids
And sleep had freed its captives,

12. And the night was the sword of dawn to separate us
It kills it as the cock laments it

13. And the living was about to set forth
As the guide readied his mounts

14. He rose to follow the caravan hurriedly
Wrapping its beginning with its end

15. And habit embraced me for parting
Bringing together my cheek and its brother

16. As if he intended for an aim
Taking the arrow with his right hand

17. Until when he brought it near his chest
He pushed it away when nearing

18. O you for whom my excuse is passionate love
I would not have been prey to passion but for it

19. We were brought together one day at a halt
That would not have been sweeter but for the separation

20. And for passion were the messages of intimacy
I conveyed to it in the morn of affection

21. When you appeared like the full moon of darkness
Its night lodging in your cheeks

22. The magic of your glances dictates
And the beauty contained in your chillness

23. The pearls from your mouth - for ages
We hear them and see them

24. I ransom the one whose love I sought
Only complaining to him of its ardour

25. I brought him the slightest hint of meaning until
He was consumed by love and attained its furthest limit

26. And all the betrayal I faced from him
His eyes told me about before

27. The day passion seeped into my heart for him
I said, beware of him and his love!

28. So if today he thought of leaving passion
Those memories would dissuade him

29. So you see, O full moon, will your phantom
Give life if passion brought it to life?

30. Rather, O brother of nobility—and by it
I mean nobility whose star is Aldebaran—

31. Glory cannot be denied when it rises high
We and you are its two wings

32. We are the sons of the rainwater which
leaves its tracks in the landscape

33. If raindrops are held back in a cloud
It suffices that his hands be freed

34. The Azd are nothing but the essence of all glory
And we on the day of pride are its branches,

35. When he called and people were our followers
Calling to the truth, we followed it,

36. So we preceded in the kingdom we gained
And the religion we supported,

37. And the Arabs travelled in our footsteps
Catching up to encampments we left behind

38. Is it not enough that they put forth a glory
And soared with their precedents?

39. That in his time, the breast of religion
Supported religion and sheltered it,

40. A support through them, then through him again
God restored it and made it last,

41. So victory for the religion of guidance returned
Its first from us and its last from us

42. It was renewed by one noble and generous
None deserves praise but him

43. Slave of the Gentle One, his glory
Too lofty for greed to be seen among people

44. A bounty - if heard of its attainments
A tenth of praise would win its arrow

45. One whose ambition sacrifices and rises gloriously
Knowledge and wisdom its familiars

46. So religion in the shade of his grandeur is protected
Its edges and center enveloped

47. And fate yielded to him as a servant
He commands it, young and old, to obey and refrain

48. Prosperity and ease are its two paths
For people, to grant and facilitate

49. O you who travel to seek reward
Hasten - with wealth or without - to meet him

50. He reserves for you when you come to him
Neither wealth nor glory, but his gifts

51. You will always find him in a condition
Of giving in ease and hardship

52. Say to the Imam, son of the Imam, whom
We hope for in fate and dread in fate

53. O you whose glory loftily rises
The mantle of the eminent is your wrap

54. Your grandfather did not choose for his sons
Other than three pieces of advice

55. One of them: Know that you
Will never be pleased with less virtue

56. The best clothes that dressed you
Are those on your equals when worn

57. Shed from you to all who wear in thanks
A garment whose length was prolonged

58. Seeing it on them is praise of you
So people hearing of it is a mirror

59. And dragging its train is your drag
Speaking extemporaneously with its support

60. Reciting ample praise, extravagant in its contents
As if it were words made agreeable

61. For praise, and the meanings its dress
And he spoke to them secondly

62. So they would be praised in time to come:
You will neither attain self-control if

63. The living prolong their survivals
Over old men, if their mouths are brought near

64. To ears
And third of the sayings he spoke

65. At the end of his life in the world:
He cast arrows for them and said: Break them

66. And they knew not what he meant
They could not break its collection

67. And scorned breaking one by one
And he said: You are like this to the enemy

68. So unite, though people are your ilk
Generosity, patience, and unity make

69. The ideal man with his benefactions
Three things which when enumerated

70. Are the epitome of noble traits
And you cannot be turned from them, raised on them

71. Your grandfather, whose ways you embody
O breast that contains the secret of glory

72. God placed in you
Fate's first injustice to me is

73. Its hindering me from you by its wrongs
Due to illness of body and condition both

74. Prolonging my prevention and befriending it
The leaders of the age are unkind to us

75. Though we have committed no crime against them
Except pleasant poetry that we compose

76. For some of them occasionally
A people whose praise I waste

77. Though my nature demands it of me
And brass covers the pearl even as

78. It is ignorant of what it covers
The breast of religion is not of their ilk

79. So propriety necessitates my poetry shun them
And how can a day be exempted when

80. A prolonged night is blamed?
Let it last, for the high endeavours that lasted

81. Flowing to a meadow whose fragrance blew far
And take a praise like its flowers

82. When affection inspires its beauty
I greeted you from afar and near alike

83. My heart ardent and quickening it
The distance of a land that was ours but

84. The nearness of secrets we mixed
I have not ceased dragging the train of darkness

85. Over a camel extending its tread
I fold the twists of a night traveller

86. Whose destination is the morning range
But its step with me was always wandering

87. Limping until its ankle-rings fell silent
To a youth from whom I hope

88. For a return to what I wish from him
And how could the attainment not contain one who became

89. The like of you, my master, O my master!