1. I lost you for an age, bearing the heaviest of burdens in your absence.
I obeyed you in a body exposed to every piercing blade that strips the sword of its edge.

2. And if he was a slave who does not anger his Lord,
You are a master who shows no mercy to his slave.

3. Oh my friend, descendant of Tameem ibn Khindif!
Among people are those whose tears their grief cannot conceal.

4. It pains me if she I craved nearness to knew my longing,
So that a string of pearls, long protected, would come undone.

5. Pour me some cups from my tears, and sing to me
About the heat of a breast whose coolness I once belittled.

6. The full moon is a darling who kisses his foot,
And I magnify him above kissing his cheek.

7. I fell for everything about him that he loves,
Even his injustice, so I fall for his rejection.

8. The night comes to me pushing its chest,
Repeatedly tearing its cloak.

9. I'm amazed by him hiding his mystery and his face,
With him the world shines and after him the sun.

10. And I need an ignorance in his union,
So who will I trust with reason in his presence?

11. People are nothing but stingy with their inheritance,
And stingier than them is he whose promise you seek.

12. I gave you my love, O Ali ibn Taghlib,
Though you did not keep kinship and its love safe.

13. How many a friend whose nearness I craved,
I tested until I craved his distance!

14. My soul demands of me every great feat
With which I'd shake the times and its glory.

15. A man has no stratagem in the accidents of fate,
If his bad luck meets his good luck.

16. I see the determination of a man become gloom and regret
When God does not make his effort prosper.

17. And my heart authenticates everything I suspect,
If I unload my worries onto it, it is distressed.

18. It is angry over a determination and a sword, both
The brothers of a confidence - if disorder touched it, it would guide it.

19. Oh, my excuse is an inattentive time,
Its cunning foxes by force overwhelm its lions.

20. Shall I drink pure wine in it while its people's blood
Equals honey for me?

21. They claimed I resented them,
But my resentment is only for fate itself.

22. My mounts ascended every ascent on the day of battle,
And every spear that makes the heart quiver.

23. So I do not fear fate after grasping its robes -
Let fate reach its extent!

24. I threw it in its throat as if it was
A sword that left its sheath at dawn.

25. And it ruled me until if I asked it for my youth
After old age had turned with it, it would return it.

26. So who is like Hatim in generosity - if Hatim
Saw him tomorrow seeking his aid?

27. One is generous, his promise preceding his action,
Another generous, his action preceding his promise.

28. And if not for poetry's failure to fully describe him,
I'd think poetry passionately loves his glory.

29. It obeyed him in praising him, reiterating,
And its angers at others, readying.

30. So O you - if I singled you out from your soldiers,
I'd see the heights and praise as your troops.

31. I raved about this rain until I exposed it,
And you built asceticism in doing favors.

32. If you have ripened his breast with anger,
How many a master you've wearied with jesting!

33. A suckling in war whose swaddling you untied,
He panicked and terror did not restrain him.

34. He who runs with blood thinks it is his share
And reckons the flanks of steeds his cradle.

35. You struck the top of his head with your sword’s blade
And made the birds in pieces his quilt.

36. And bolder than him, his heart has watched,
Frightened by you until you threw your spear as his barrrier.

37. My ambitions reach, O son of Mahallab, an end
With which I'd win the wager and stake it all.

38. Leave what the flies speculate of poetry
And seek what possesses poetry’s purpose.

39. When does he praise beauty - far from him such praise -
Since beauty is not blameworthy and deserves praise?