1. My heart became sick like your eyelids,
And my body complained of emaciation like your waist,

2. And your love made it lean
As you see it weak and thin.

3. So be gentle with it, for in your love
It will not change its state of passion.

4. It spends the night sleepless
And scarcely knows a little slumber.

5. Lightning makes it long for the wings of night
And the cooing of a dove makes it sleepless at night.

6. So it complains of the burning of passion in the morning
And sheds tears from its eyelids.

7. And the northern breezes intoxicate me
Until I become as if I have drunk wine.

8. And how much the youth has drunk of tears
Remembering the loved ones for so long.

9. But it does not quench the thirst of passion,
And how can tears quench thirst?

10. You killed our beloved friends,
And many like them died.

11. You tamed the garden of this love,
And patience became impossible.

12. When you left on your journey
You took my heart most cruelly.

13. The morning the camel-litters departed
Roaming from landmark to landmark.

14. Why did you not send us the breeze?
So it would be a messenger to us.

15. You were stingy to send an apparition to visit the lover,
And I did not know you to be stingy.

16. You closed off the way for the imagination of souls
So no specter found its way to me.

17. Stop, my friend, short of cheating me
And let not the friend abandon his friend.

18. Let us fulfill the rights of the abode of chastity
And weep for the abode and water its sand.

19. Its towers were like stars
Would that they had not met their setting!

20. Oh our house, none like you brings life
And the floods have dragged their tails over you.

21. My eyes have been humbled for your eyes
And the noble and mighty became insignificant.

22. How long will I please and satisfy the slanderers
And listen to this one’s words and that one’s?

23. The censors blamed me for loving you
And cast heavy words upon my hearing.

24. The censors have gone far astray
And attempted something now impossible.

25. When one loses the way of wealth
The lights of Uthman guide the way,

26. We flock tribe by tribe
To the one who grants wishes to the seeker.

27. When the envious denied his superiority
The heights bore witness to his merit.

28. And when the time came for his seeker to leave
He called out farewell, painful departure!

29. Swiftly answering supplications
Never ceasing to hasten towards good.

30. His branches thrived as his roots grew sound
Bearing wholesome fruit and roots.

31. In him grew gardens of generosity
And the boughs of hopes did not wither.

32. He raised merit after decline
And merit in him knew no decline.

33. He strove and so attained
A lofty position and lasting glory.

34. Why should the glorious not attain the heights?
Stretching out his arm to lasting glory.

35. When the frightened gathered under his shade
They saw him as ample, sheltering shade.

36. The champion prevents time’s caprice
And gives the supplicant ample gifts.

37. He attains even if the blamers blame him
And who can prevent the rain from falling?

38. I fell passionately for the superior merit of knowledge
And do not seek with the heights any substitute.

39. I came in the miracles of perfection
Perplexing even the minds of men.

40. Your resolves that reveal calamities
Nearly make mountains crumble.

41. By God, what determination lies in your ascent!
Returning the grieved swiftly to serenity.

42. If you sought to topple mountain foundations by it
You would make the mountains a flattened ruin.

43. And you destroyed the rubble with your right hand
To deserve fair praise.

44. And left an enduring, praiseworthy legacy
That people recount for generations.

45. With your pen, you made the height of ascent
Into kohl and the cheek of hopes tearful.

46. The servants came to you with poems
Roaming in your praise lengthwise and crosswise.

47. Reward me by accepting them
For the utmost hope is to attain acceptance.