1. The obstinacy of a heart whose delusions do not awaken,
And the need of a soul whose ease is never fulfilled,

2. And an eye that weeps clouds over the ruins,
When the agony of its innards moans its sigh.

3. I burden it with rainfall at every halt,
If it were a land its springs would gush forth.

4. Neither does the eye gather intent and tears,
Is there a waterskin I can borrow from it?

5. We stood in ranks in the abodes as if
They were scattered scrolls and we were its lines.

6. My companion said while the antelope were evacuation,
“Is it the one you love?” I said, “Its peer.”

7. If their stallions and eyes resembled it,
Their withers and breasts would differ from it.

8. So my wonder at it repelling its companion,
And approaching us timidly with aversion!

9. That is only because gazelles of Aamir
Trust that visitors are their hawks.

10. Did not what its suns reaped on the heart suffice,
Until its houses supported it?

11. We retreated fearing its females,
Why then does it summon the descent of males?

12. By Allah, I do not know on the morrow of our looking
Are those arrows or goblets it directs?

13. So if they are of arrows, then where is their hissing?
And if they are of wine, then where is its happiness?

14. O companions, seek its wine’s permission for me,
For its tents have permitted me arrival.

15. Giving it up, it shunned a lover it startled,
Am I then but a specter visiting it?

16. You both told me there is no paradise on earth,
But this one above the couch, its houries.

17. Then do not reckon my heart is untroubled, for it
Has a throne a prison, and it is its captive.

18. The longing is difficult on the enamored
When her lips are between them a stream.

19. I see you have the fever—tell me, by what means
Did you reach and chance upon its breaches?

20.
I have no knowledge of it—are you a scholar?

21. Are her mouths more worthy of it or her jugulars?
The moist breeze is fragrant in every halt,

22. But not every land has its drifts perfumed.
The boughs of cinnamon from the land of Beesha

23. Are a beloved to me, its shade and aroma.
Sweeter than roses plucked, the flow of its torrents,

24. And more honeyed than strained honey, the trickle of its rills.
For your messengers in love—we are a band,

25. When triumphant in passion, their conscience pardoned.
It is equal for the ardent lover and estrangement his fortune—

26. Does it loose its reproach or intensify its dawns?
By your life, the singers have no sorcery

27. Over my soul, and grey hair is its warner.
The white hairs are but celestial bodies

28. Rising over my head, and in my heart, their light.
A brilliance guiding me, so I followed excellence,

29. The facile meanings, its paths, and ruggedness.
With it Allah answered the caliphate when it called

30. For a minister, so he was of its purest conscience.
With it, its caller was swollen, and its prosperity radiant,

31. Its valley was copious, and its breaches blocked.
Its encampments boasted of it on the day of departure,

32. And its palaces adorned themselves for it on the day of abode.
Its miracles were concealed before it

33. So it revealed them until its unbelievers acknowledged.
He saw it as nothing but gems falling

34. With which its crown and throne were adorned.
No wonder its pillars lengthened,

35. And this sublime Arrahean was its minister.
So say to the nights however you wish to turn,

36. For in the grip of Ablah al-Saadi are its affairs.
A hand perfumed with gifts and smeared

37. With musk—its perfume and fragrance.
If the seal of the caliphate is its ornament,

38. What more glory can its proud seek?
No bracelets were cast were it not for its wrists,

39. No silks were produced were it not for its silk.
The longings in the vizierate’s breasts were attained,

40. To its essence, so they deserved its vows.
They submitted to every suitor of pleasures,

41. Except a dignified courter meet for its pride.
Who is like Fakhr al-Dawla in completing it?

42. Not every star in the sky radiates its light.
Now we see in its majestic sessions,

43. Sessions filled with the eminent, their breasts its nooks.
As if over those carpets lies a snake

44. Whose hissing cannot be answered.
When the throngs approach below its lair,

45. The spirited and placid equal it.
Nearly, due to the tranquility it wears,

46. Do birds over those heads flitter.
Leave glory to the guide, to every shortcoming—

47. The bending branch, its curvature is difficult.
For the discerning and informed, certainty

48. Of the future of states—what will their destiny be?

49. Do you not know goods are in the earth
While tribulations are in ravines and mountains?

50. The Hāshimites all learned
Which son of anxiety soured its bitterness.

51. With his burning views, if he contested
The mountains of Shaūrā, their boulders would shake.

52. I remain on the peripheries of kindness,
Asking the mounts of needs—where is their journey?

53. May the Lord of men reward its mounts’ best reward,
Mounts the generous deeds make their camels envious.

54. May He water steeds that walked with might and munificence,
From the surging, striding she-camels, copious their rivers.

55. They inherited from the nobility of Dar Rabi’a
And Bakr, news overflowing its rivulets.

56. They surpassed tribes from Tha’laba Aamir,
For them glory defensive and prosperity raiding.

57. And aiding them a band from Al Juththa
When the invoker dons armor, mighty their aid.

58. Protectors of swords and spears, their sanctuary,
And intestines of wolves of wastelands, their graves.

59. Their towering, fully-armed tents, its pillars,
And their horses’ enclosure, its curtains.

60. Courtyards like meadows, their expanse,
And like mountains steady, their cauldrons.

61. When guests knock, their camels sing,
Their she-camel and camel bellow woefully.

62. The bestowers of generosity walked not but
To them the barrens of Iraq and its mountains slid.

63. Almost for it, Baghdad one day set forth,
To walk its singing girls and tear down its buildings.

64. It was only the Hijazi migration
True to the Prophet’s tribe, grateful.

65. By Allah a sun whose setting is its rise,
And it rises wherever it wishes, its orbits.

66. You returned to the body of vizierate its spirit,
What was unhoped for its revival and resurrection!

67. It stood for a time with other than you jaded,
And this time is its fodder and cleansing.

68. It is truth to honor with it its deserver,
And revoke it, borrowed, from one rejected.

69. If the beautiful woman married one unequal to her,
Her advisor ruled for divorce, her releaser.

70.
I think Ibn Darust tasted vizierate distracted,

71. To a horse its milestones returned in its circuits.
The plateaus of glory are not so slippery,

72. For Anhan the hoof-sound to stumble.
Why would one preoccupied with weaving a crown

73. Take on a position he does not refine?
I say as its screen obscured him from us—

74. Gently, beneath indecencies, its veils.
Some foolishness clings to Ibn Al-Husain—

75. Alas, failed his Master and wretched his clan!
So he transgressed upon him his opinion and destroyed him

76. As the cold destroyed the flowers one short day.
Was his fallen star but its tail?

77. Was its foul wind but its anus?
It delighted him beneath the porch, his chatter,

78. Though only the she-asses savor its braying.
It did not occur to him the wolf could pause

79. When it dragged the lead of affairs, its painter.
For the shepherd of cattle’s land only settles it

80. Ravaged by a mollifying fang.
Do not underestimate might when scorned—

81. Sometimes its littlest draws grave affliction.
I wish I could meet your glory continued,

82. Its lion-like merits for it I enlighten.
But I wandered far in the land, my destination,

83. To honor a soul its excuse abandoned.
It clamored me away from Baghdad in disgrace—

84. Like the bite of the Samharra snake, its rocks.
For the likes elevation their steeds’ saddles,

85. And the vulgar their articulation gobble.
I nearly forgot my own eloquence for it—

86. Except a nature in the dove is its cooing.
We left the cattle of Zuraa there grazing between them

87. Sparrows rising in the drifts, their chirping.
I said: “God’s land is vast and easy.”

88. Will I seek refuge in Afhawsha’s cave?
The lion may leave the land leisurely

89. When the dogs of the quarter bark their yap.
Nights stayed your abode downcast,

90. Their days repeated and months melancholic.
Their era chronicled from your prosperity’s birth,

91. And counted by the eagles’ lifetimes.
Beneath you chronicled for the crown, its pearls purchased,