1. I ask her for affection, so she becomes aloof,
And I tame my heart with patience, so it takes wing.

2. Why can I not cease to be slain by passion?
And wander lost in the glory of beauty and take joy?

3. Why do you keep me waiting, though the waiting becomes it?
And allot me graceful patience, which then turns ugly?

4. She is cold, though my ribs have not twisted toward her,
Yearning for her, while my wings are folded.

5. My heart is stingy with her, while my words
Speak sparingly of her, though my eyelids are candid.

6. O you who blame me for my passion, my passion itself
Is my best defense, clearer than her shining face.

7. I have betrayed piety and severed family ties
If I do not restrain my love for her, whoever admonishes me.

8. Do not rebuke the passionate lover, for his heart
Is like flint, stricken by blame, only to spark.

9. Why has your blame weakened me,
When I can carry any momentous affair that swells?

10. Fate grants me no lifetime, unless
The term of the Ever-Living One grants it.

11. O dwellers of al-Jurʿāʾ, I cannot endure separation,
Nor have your shelters lost their clarity.

12. Have you permitted the breeze to visit?
For I smell its lingering musk.

13. The full moons diminish after your faces, in my eyes,
And my gaze aspires to them no more.

14. Do not deny that your distance kills the slumberers,
Is not their blood pouring on my cheek?

15. Excuse me, for however much my heart is loyal to you,
My excuse has died, and the salt flats are desolate.

16. In your flock are gazelles gliding by,
Their white thighs unscarred.

17. Your bracelets are silent ornaments
That intimate speech to eloquent wrists.

18. Our eyes are captive, and our minds lost,
To your thorns, though their lightening is unseen.

19. The abandoned place is worn out by your quarter,
Where the oryx wanders, adorned in patterned cloth.

20. Were it not for your impenetrable bosoms,
The white antelopes could graze in peace at daybreak.

21. Be gentle with me, your spirit inclined toward you,
Borne by the morning breeze, solaced.

22. It pours toward the lightning of your cheeks, flames arise,
And it aims its scattering tears, to flow.

23. It was the preserves of ardor and the duty of ardor
That cultivated its covenant and tamed its savagery.

24. It roamed the dwellings of delight, without
Solace of spirit, or hearts eased.

25. The water of all springs after Zamzam’s
Sweetness is bitter in my mouth and brackish.

26. O neighbors, time has erred by uniting them,
So erase it, now that they have settled among you, and correct it.

27. Seek not my heart with me, its home
Is only the hillsides of Minā or the dunes.

28. O would that we had a season at Minā with you
To give you our hearts and slaughter our souls!

29. You left fervent love behind you in me,
While my spirit remains unmovingly with you.

30. What is my pact with time worth, or my hope in you,
When none of my dreams in you come true?

31. I complain of time to its children, but
Time is corrupt; no reformer is found in them.

32. Their morals are base, so time is base. I see
Naught of good in it but one worthy of praise:

33. The glorious and gentle one, who purchases praise
With his soul and wealth, and freely gives.

34. A free man who shows humanity, with the dew,
Morals like flowers of gardens in bloom.

35. Morals that the verse of purification proclaims,
Praising their nobility through his merit.

36. A branch, pure of the palm tree of nobility,
Above which the leaves of the imamate rustle.

37. A banner under which the wilderness is united
Into one for the doubters, the clearest proof.

38. It is above your knowledge of it, so reflect upon it,
For regarding it, sights find a focus.

39. This is a summary of the Master’s copy, the lineage
Of the Prophet’s House. His superiority cannot be recounted.

40. Praise is insignificant and beneath him. So whoever
Praises him has merely struck the flints for fire.

41. If you wish to attain salvation, then be loyal to him.
For whoever is loyal to ʿAlī succeeds.

42. Mountains firmly rooted quake, while his forbearance
In his breast is unshaken and unstirred,

43. Showing no despair for the greatest of those departed from him,
Nor joy when that befell him.

44. How many tears flow from fearful eyes,
And breasts that grieve for both fear and hope!

45. A lion whose blood of lions in battle
Is sweeter than the spittle of lambs.

46. His white sword makes the darkness of battle dawn,
As if it is pure milk, rising and ripening.

47. He surpassed men though his life never exceeded
A year. And fame did not reach him while still a child.

48. How many nights pregnant with darkness he made bright,
Until the essence of dawn flowed from them!

49. He draws enduring victory with his sword,
And with his counsel the gloom of tumult grows clear.

50. If the barren wind were joined to him for a day,
She would be blessed with rain nearing a downpour.

51. He fulfilled it when wishes ran out, and the cups
Of hopes had brimmed over, flooding excessively.

52. He gave the lofty honor, so his meadows became
Fertile; else, they had nearly withered.

53. The dew there nurtures the hidden garden of his praise,
And the scent of musk permeates all that lies open.

54. He brought ease to kings by his hand and was nobler than them in lineage,
And kinder than them to the blameworthy and most clement.

55. Say to the envious critic of his traits: Do you know
What light of the full moon is unseemly?

56. Look on all his traits and deeds. For in their entirety
They instruct one who closely examines.

57. How strange are the people who disbelieve in them! Had they
Understood—and not neglected right—they would have glorified.

58. O son of the Exalted, were it not for the mountains of their arrogance,
The expanse of the earth would not have settled in place.

59. You whose praise is without limit, who gives without cease,
Whose opinion hits the mark, with neither lion neither steed to rein.

60. Win the heights! And enjoy, for you are worthy of them.
None but you in the world suits them.

61. And find in my verse the rarely expressed pearls of thought
That, beyond you, its prime is never wed.

62. Be joyful forever! A face like yours in its delight
Sates those who thirst and parches those who crave.

63. A feast whose crescent, perfected by your good fortune, appeared
For you are more perfect than it and brighter.

64. May the fasting month keep ending in bounty for you,
And reward—for both are unlocked through you.