1. O master of a lifetime pitched or amid the wilderness,
when the caravan slept came close, far flung.

2. Gloom spread its garb while the garb
of dawn renewed in light arrayed us;

3. his twilight-gleam gave us light, no flash hid in the dark,
but loyalty that turned from vigilance,

4. how many vigilance the winds of loyalty swept away!
Your covenants departed praised

5. for nearness of union and distance of disaffection
and left grief endless, for grief nothing ends,

6. a yearning I wrestle beneath the standard’s sway
like wrestling the bull’s horn beneath the banner.

7. Patience, when the ardour of passion rose,
I clung to it as to the passing mirage.

8. Time seduced whom it lured,
I found him tearful of eye, proud of consolation.

9. Grey hairs dawned on those eyes
and changed them with something radiant from light.

10. How many days whose mantle idleness drew
like drawing off a cloak we plucked away!

11. Surrendered ones we shook for them
the planets of spears to pour the blood,

12. and Order bound their bodies
with close array like ranks in battle lined.

13. To them we stretch the palms of men—
they return like the palms of women.

14. The wavy torrents when breezes stroked
their streams, a mane flying in the air.

15. We marched and its lights were like the cold,
we halted and its dunes were like the filled.

16. The beasts meet us in a garden
as stars met you across the sky.

17. Is there some way to publish it
when the steeds of ease career inside it,

18. and its moons when they show it
their beauties, mornings wearing eve's attire,

19. and renewing them by trailing the trains
and trailing the skirts, the horizon's breadth,

20. and when the wine-skins sag their litters
with arts of singing, arts of glee,

21. and our scattering the herd of gazelles
with swords kept burnished like the herd of wild cows

22. if sought for racing steeds
or sought for ships bringing safe return,

23. and how many friends saw my seclusion
and turned away, though we were friends of ardour!

24. A red doe mixed in its cheek
by water of cloud, water of light.

25. It warns me of my fate in revelry—
was I ever safe in the thickets?

26. Strange that the polished libertine swore
and swore by the absence of the prophets!

27. Drive him to the son of the victorious—
Jesus of hope will grant him triumph.

28. We called the loosener of the knot of joy
generous, and the knot's fastener praise.

29. The youthful of years, years of dew,
gave judgement the right of issuing judgements.

30. With palm that patters water of life
and face that patters water of shame.

31. He mastered eld but over an envier
whom the robe of arrogance disputes.

32. He won, nor in his course profited
by the morrow of strife’s arrow of profit.

33. As if his nature, in its scattering and shining,
were a fragrance in the intellect.

34. His resolutions unsheathe the swords
and outrun destiny’s caprice.

35. A bounty, if it became a measure,
would convince the dust of richness.

36. I alighted in his fortress,
fruitful of side, spacious of precinct.

37. He roused for us therein the wind of dew,
at ease informing us of ease.

38. A father whose ordinances the days’ vicissitudes
before him decline, after obstinacy bend.

39. A breach in bounties he opened and rent
and so his hands veiled the screen of giving.

40. A steadfastness, when nights march
with a wind whose breath haughtiness,

41. as if calamities that attempted him
from them distilled drops of ruin.

42. Its glory the noble reared from a bedouin;
he preferred to build that edifice.

43. You remain, and how many virtues have clothed
glory with the robe of eternity!

44. A day whose horsemen will blossom
in meadows of battles, in meadows of thirst.

45. As if its swords in the death-throes
were lightning rending the clouds' veil.

46. The ankle-rings seemed in his two wrists
as a bracelet wandered on an arm.

47. As if the twisted chains from their gleaming
snatched at Sun’s members, in daylight’s domain.

48. For your eyes he illumined in his branding
the Pleiades, path of loftiness.

49. You, when the Exalted tried you,
were apt in unravelling woe’s knot.

50. So free Abu Ahmad with a freedom
everlasting, no end to its span

51. which would choke the foe hearts
and with coolness fill the friends' breasts.

52. I called you though time was unfavourable
mingling valour for me with deceit.

53. So you deserved the bounty of wealth
and I deserved the bounty of song.