1. Who taught the heart what it dictates of love poems -
Is it the cooing of doves or the yearning of camels?

2. Nay, it is longing that calls out within our breasts
To which the gentle hero's soul responds.

3. For every malady there is a soothing cure;
Is there a doctor to heal the blame and disdain?

4. Clarity and estrangement lose intimacy between them -
How can I hope for the discord of love to fade?

5. It kills the love within my chest and buries it;
Where do I see profit in complaining of failure?

6. The fauns won their pearls while they replaced
The oyster shells with gritty stones.

7. I know not whether their lids, O censurers,
Were kohl-darkened or their eyelids dyed with kohl.

8. The boughs never doubt that the branches traced
Upon them with leaves of modesty.

9. Who sees a caravan fallen in their dwellings
Calls it a landmark, and calls it not ruins.

10. The neighborhood is accustomed to your night visitors -
Their guards stay up all night in anxiety.

11. My love and passion make excuses for me
To the sentinel with a tryst fixed between them.

12. They asked not after me in their departure
Save that I came with apologies and pretexts.

13. By God! A people who plunder the dwellings generously
And reproach the guests with languid eyes.

14. Had they lacked eggs and quail, their helps
Would be frying, tossing, and throws from the skillet.

15. As if between my lids, every female gazer
Aims the arrow of a bending branch of acacia.

16. Their visages are no pasture for our eyes,
Nor is looking a watering place for ogling and kisses.

17. Their smiles narrate the clouds gliding
Yet no rain narrates their generosity.

18. They feared for the eyes what was in their veils
Of beauty so they shrouded beauty with stinginess.

19. O guide of the caravan tempted by the lightning
Flickering with the water of the delicate branch.

20. Such is the world's beauty whose fires are doused
With the blood of the delicate and frail.

21. The delegation is not asked what is in their belongings
Unless they come with hopes completely fulfilled.

22. And the mounts were not pastured in the encampment
Save they were indignant at the fodder and extras.

23. If you refrain from the gifts out of shyness
Win them through cunning and tricks.

24. You fell short, O clouds, of reaching its end
So your lightning is but the blushing of shame.

25. A peacemaker between his benefits and comforts
Struggles and toils to broker peace without payment.

26. A Hashimite sword bared when taxes
Become harsh does not separate heads from necks.

27. In the grip of the victorious caliph are its hilt and its blades
Against the enemies on the hills.

28. The parchment pages white as flattened eggs for him
In valor equaling the dark Indian and Asian swords.

29. He has often out-argued peers
Until they conceded that words can be as deeds.

30. Every opponent wishes to exclude him from
The superior merit of the sword and dispense with debate.

31. No harm in deaf might with all its
Saying more decisive than Indian steel and broadswords.

32. And you made the insolent drink a potion of
Guile mixed with honeyed words of gentleness.

33. The ears’ pleasures never sweetened its drink
Until the daughters of temptation went mad.

34. You were forebearing with patience unjustified
By clemency though man was created of haste.

35. Then the deafness engulfed them so they dispersed,
Each hand of misfortune in the belly of plain and mountain.

36. Not every remedy can cure all maladies;
Cautery is best remedy for the mangy camel skin.

37. Tell the critic if fortunes alternate it is cycles
And slander against allegiances below slander against dynasties.

38. Alas! The Abbasids, their shade should not
Withdraw from the arena of religion and world.

39. Bitter vigilance guards their truth, its taste -
Pillow of opinion between composure and haste.

40. Submissive, so if his temper is provoked, death
Gnashes its teeth from its gaping jaws.

41. O Aqil, if his battalions are absent
You gain victory and if they appear you flee terrified.

42. Why not stand even for a lightning flash
Since fleeing does not save one from fate.

43. So avoid the countryside, O one whose heel chafes
And descend upon the soft sand and caves.

44. The weaving of robes from your most expensive clothes
And the best provision is the knee-length tattered coat.

45. If they experience glory in luxury for a while
Then it is time for disgrace to enter the garments.

46. Expect it from generosity to strike them
Like the sun’s concealment in the newborn.

47. If one day it turns from you then tomorrow at dawn,
It will come to you or roots will return to the origin.

48. With each shivering coward it never knew
The confusion born of reverence for death.

49. It calls upon his arms whenever spirits
Embrace his pity with paralysis.

50. A horde like the thick clouds, clad
In lightning and thunder, flashes and rumbling.

51. Sailing the ships whose sailing surpassed
As if its rider is balanced on a mountain.

52. Its rider trained it to charge and attack
So you’d think it a chest without armpits.

53. Have you not heard the news of Bullad and his family -
An incident that confused metaphor after metaphor?

54. When time cast him from an impregnable height
Death cannot overtake the plunge of the kid goat.

55. He fell upon his face and palms stained
Swords are but kisses to those who disobey you.

56. The birds are too noble to feed on his corpse
Knowing he is of the most rotten flesh.

57. The earth is your abode and you spend your days
Upon sustaining you while realms are like a plaything.

58. Gratify our sight until we say to it
“You have seen all people embodied in one man.”