1. What ails the daughter of Sa'd, that she finds no solace?
Her affection wears out, but does not wear away.

2. She said "Did you hear the censure?" I said "For love of your mention I listen to censure."
Don't be anxious for your love about virtue.

3. Women have overcome me and taken control.
Youth is a wild colt I have mounted,

4. And because of him, destruction was called a ruin.
Oh how I miss the tryst though days have rendered it vain,

5. When I was preoccupied with sending messages.
And the poetry I knew has changed,

6. Separation and union have changed it.
So its whiteness, if it has become motes,

7. Is made into kohl by its blackness.
I yearn for a kingdom I was passionate about,

8. When gray hair for his kingdom was but an unkempt lock.
The rising sun cannot ascend,

9. Except that I liken it to her visage.
And stops I have no excuse for, ever,

10. If I know, O most sublime.
So sheathe your sword after your audacity,

11. For the sword inspires awe even when sheathed.
And a young man who assumed the burden of calamity

12. From me, though fit to carry that load.
My hands were too short for what I have for him,

13. So he saw for himself the superiority.
Consider if I had known of it,

14. I would have removed the burden from your slender frame.
And the caprices of fate would have granted me respite,

15. If I had said to it then, "grant me respite."
And its consequences will follow me,

16. So I will increase or diminish as it diminished or increased.
The night does not travel with its stars,

17. Had it not been for her visage adorning it.
And I met the dawn, it asked me about it

18. So I did not turn away when it turned away.
And I built a cairn over calamity,

19. With a small rock that knows no shade.
Its honey bees befriend me,

20. Like arrows accompanying pinion feathers.
Their schemes penetrated so I faced them

21. With schemes when guile failed me.
What is the way to association,

22. That brings the abode near and unites kin?
While the Buyids, after their intimacy,

23. Vie in villainy and archery.
It is they who have crammed wars with every

24. Young lion that tears apart the billows or is set free.
And with every wrongful, wrathful tyrant

25. They have made him justice among themselves.
And with Muhnad, his nature has enriched him

26. From renewing after him a scabbard.
Arrogance, which makes the forbearing forget

27. What forbearance holds, so he rides ignorance.
Succors of Ahmad's nation have overcome

28. The views of men, so be an arbiter for it.
Draw near to your brother, and do not obey those

29. Who forbade you to befriend family.
Have you considered, if his wish were to approach me,

30. Who would have more right to mourn him?
So race to meet water brought to you both,

31. Uplifting the great, and wetting the small.
Why not, when he came to you confessing

32. Sins, make him feel at home?
So refrain from mercy yet have mercy,

33. When you saw your dear humbled.
There is no experience after the old age of a man,

34. Trials surely mature the mind.
Leave this one for its closeness a connection,

35. And purpose for another that severed the rope.
Put the nomads wherever you put them,

36. They hunt gazelles and small deer.
It is as if I see them wink

37. The wink of the squint-eyed, mocking the one-eyed.
Their elders are erased by their young,

38. For the ignorance they brought upon them.
Like one stumbling, whose misstep

39. Ensnared a foot, so it necessitated a sandal.
Be like Sapur, the day he healed

40. The rage in chests and attained kingship.
And exiled troops after they had eaten

41. The land of Saad and its people whole.
By God, the worth of Sinan, who made

42. Rods and spearheads into gravel.
It passed the generous, rising,

43. As if it had severed its rope through him.
Follow them, and despite their cunning,

44. Twenty thousand adolescent recruits.
And it set out to Najd, leaving no

45. Branch for its inhabitants, or root.
Days when they were like dogs in it,

46. While the Banu Uqayl herded camels.
All delighted by his misery,

47. The best of lands to him is the most barren.
They love their brother with half his urine,

48. If he honors the riding beast or makes it kneel.
And the thirsty one counts it generosity,

49. While the lowly is not made more lowly by lowness.
Reform your tribes, they have surely spoiled,

50. By that you reform the knot and solution.