1. You remained, while time itself expired and ended;
Its beginning faded, while yours will never cease.

2. You destroyed my hopes with your generosity, my wishes-
Made me rich, until I was free of all needs.

3. You made me, after having stood still, say-
Whenever time comes here-depart! Begone!

4. Nizar was keen to please Rabia
That you have made the destitute rich through God;

5. That you never leave a tent, rent
With swords through which Al-Musharrafiah was severed.

6. Its folds curved from the rocks, so it rose high
Repelling the horsemen, accustomed to running wildly.

7. When their hooves lost hope of the foals-
You raised the armored warriors up toward it on the spear points.

8. Your swords more deadly to souls than perdition,
Your fear more fatal than your sword points to the foe.

9. Your night a morning that does not get obscured by the dust cloud,
Your dawn a night that gleams not for all the hills.

10. You, without whom honor was not known
Nor the world was, nor the creation made.

11. A prince whose eyelids eschew the pleasure of sleep,
As though the sweetness of sleep in his lids were irritation.

12. Does your sentry frown, or does your pillow incline
Jealously at your eyes because of the decrepitude of old age?

13. He whose eyes were deprived of sleep for glorious deeds
His gaze shepherded among the stars in its expanse.

14. The heart cannot sleep while the eye is awake
Nor sheathe the eyes while the heart is roused.

15. Indeed the eye of a man reveals his heart
Reporting its secrets whether he wishes or not.

16. I saw a generous man whom people ate his provisions-
If they wearied of their own provisions they wearied of (going on) living.

17. He sees what their eyes see while he remains silent,
And what their eyes do not see his eye does see.

18. So I said a cloud from whose shade I take shelter-
Neither refusing affection and love nor bartering them.

19. Before him I saw no hermit life of asceticism,
Nor did I see, before myself, anyone flee from life.

20. To your view, Saif al-Dawla, care is inferior.
Only determination and the promise inferior to care.

21. You continue to don the garment of time persisting,
And to wear the raiment of life endlessly.