1. Enough sorrow, O son of al-Musayyab, that I
Am exiled from Baghdad, from your neighborhood.

2. And I see the flags of my home as one sees
The well-aligned houses overlooking each other.

3. If you wish, the doves of Ayka will sing to me,
Or the young gazelles and those missing their companions.

4. I turn my eyes to the meadows as if I were
A thirsty man gathering dew that pours out.

5. If he lands in a place whose air was not clapped by a wing,
Nor did any beast wander free in the wilderness.

6. After being content with hardships and disabilities,
With what the little birds on the hills sing.

7. And I left, I did not hesitate, though after the distance
There are snakes slithering in their thickets.

8. Alas, I cannot journey towards you,
And the flood plain is between me and you, vast.

9. So tell the rain-pourer of war, before its time,
That it is already pregnant, so see what it will give birth to.

10. For had you consulted me on the day of Wasit,
You would have known who is the advisor loyal to you.

11. I will divert myself from you, O clan of Basil,
And in every land, from other than it, I will bellow.

12. So I dislike a cure that does not heal longing
As I disliked the roses of gardens that sting.

13. And the winds take the horizons from you in all directions
Bringing death, rending them like a slaughtering knife.

14. They are cut off from their dawns and times of watering
By the morning breezes, attacking and moaning.

15. I have been told of what you have done,
And I am neither provoking nor praising you.

16. For twenty years I stayed up nights
Struggling for your causes and fighting.

17. A reward! So refrain from the ignorance of your fool
And he who does not restrain his dog is a barker.

18. I was nothing but absent, preoccupied,
When I came to you, whether going or returning.

19. And it is only fair that you investigate
The proper tradition―truth is lucid and clear.

20. Far be it for me that the springs of poetry
Should flow upon you or the meters surge.

21. Perhaps Abu Hassan will dispel its darkness
With his genius―and the Buyer―success is profitable.

22. So Ka‘b, and none but him, will inform me
If the anklet of his love―it wanders unrestrained.

23. The clan of the builder of edifices, the imitators,
Through them injustice is prevented by the ferocious attacker.

24. They are people whose rods refused to bend,
Lofty heights and swords that tear flesh.

25. They maim the dunes and profit is a pleasure
That battles the fires of settlements or hurls spears.