1. O you who dyed my head white and departed,
Neither of you has a substitute or replacement,

2. Except the Imam, for every incident,
His majesty did not make a mistake.

3. The Capable, the Healer, who the former fathers failed,
In their efforts, though they carried the burdens they carried.

4. They reached the end of worldly life,
And its vicissitudes exemplified them.

5. If men were known for other than them,
They would not be known except for what they did.

6. News remains of those they overcame,
As if they lived though killed.

7. Abu al-Abbas found us divided,
With disarray in our system.

8. So he pursued remedies decisively,
With determination until the diseases died out.

9. A light from the Godhead in a human,
If he were flawed, his flaw was being a man.

10. Bahram is a crackling from his sparks,
And Qulamah a star from his constellation.

11. The biographies of kings were superseded by him,
As the religions were superseded by Ahmad’s faith.

12. He does not complain of a pain that hurt him,
For his wound, his patience was a cure.

13. The length of the irrigation canal makes his arm long,
He continues though the pickaxes cooperate.

14. One whose giving never tires,
Until the howdahs of the camels tire.

15. He has a plain of pleasures set aside,
And generosity that distracts him from preoccupation.

16. Assemblies that polish minds within them,
Neither vanity attends them, nor coquetry.

17. Your pure, purifying qualities,
And successors whose fathers were messengers.

18. Talk fades away except their talk,
For time, except in them, changes.

19. For them in the belly of Minna, when they descend,
Are the throngs of pilgrims, their prayers essential.

20. And the Maqam of Abraham praying,
And the cornerstone where kisses are exchanged.

21. They have faces lit up by,
And fingers by which hopes are plucked.

22. Their swords swagger when they ride mounted,
And walk submissively when they dismount.

23. For them are the lances and every drawn sword,
Except the lances whose straightness is marred.

24. For him from each kind of tall spear
Is a blade by which souls are connected.

25. Their feet, you would think them
Birds pecking at the sides of a valley.

26. The enemies do not feel safe from their absence,
For their nearness and distance confound.

27. Diversely they drive back the foes,
As if for an entertainer they were shields.

28. Theirs are the coats of mail as though they were seeds
Played with by fate and adversity.

29. And bows whose strikes became gentle,
As if slings were their lids.

30. They deemed silk déclassé due to their deeds,
So they walked barefoot and sandaled.

31. What can I say and what can be said of them
If they did not perfect, they did not perfect?

32. I wish those who suffered of love
Knew how they suffered and who spurned them!

33. I have a pact whose conditions stipulated
That no crazed passion pass through my mind.

34. I did not reckon the misfortunes that guaranteed
Nothing but senility and confused babble.

35. I complain to you of a slumbering singing girl
Who neither draws near nor connects by night.

36. Drowsy, the phantom of her form visits her by darkness
So the drowsiness intensified her phantom.

37. She was stingy with what sleep provided her,
And the singing girls are good at stinginess.

38. In the neighboring lane is a girl
Whom neither jewelry adorns nor unveiling.

39. A cheek—if they veil its beauty—
The covers and sleepiness befall it.

40. Like the rising and setting sun
Dawn neither conceals it nor nightfall.

41. And if she dons the full moon and is masked by it
She eclipses so its surface is blemished.

42. Were it not for you, we would not be shown mercy, and
Whoever does not delay would hasten our demise.

43. You reached souls in which there was still spirit
So you revived them and their liveliness waned.

44. While people await an awaited one
Prolonged in his absence and disputed.

45. They claimed you were his sign
While you were the guidance and justice was rendered equitable through you.

46. They spurned him and protested with his ways
While you appeared and through you maladies were set aright.

47. They make excuses with faces illness has marred,
Out of envy, to which no shame returns.

48. You clarified the sickness those hearts concealed,
Whose surface envy knitted.

49. Their whims conquered their reason,
And reason is shackled by whims.

50. Say to those who subdued others by their meanness—
Nay, those who were debased by their grandeur:

51. When all the people shunned him,
Kinsmen and even your mother was called mad.

52. I set out my belongings, and they are impregnable
Among a people who did and did not do.

53. Were it not for my place among their abodes
Horizons and roads would be straitened for me.

54. So when I panic to them they give victory,
And when I incline to them they give unconditionally.

55. They conceal from my condition inquiry—they
Are generous whether they ask or are asked.

56. Blessings, but without number,
And virtues, enumerating them is difficult.

57. They attained with some gentleness what they sought,
And composure, if you praise it, is hasty.

58. Inform the Commander of the Faithful through them
In poetry, of one who is regarded and wraps himself.

59. From my praise poetry I am abstinent,
While love poetry and amorous verse are for others.