1. O night at the end of the month,
You came after fasting with celebration.

2. The morning revealed to us its events,
And the hidden betrayal was uncovered.

3. I became self-sufficient,
Never needing guards at the den.

4. It attacked me with a great calamity,
And its assault was from where I know not.

5. Afflictions have befallen, what a fate!
That appeared to me at dawn.

6. In a dark night you'd think it
The day of parting and night of the grave.

7. No sooner had it plotted,
Than the night knocker knocked with evil.

8. I think the sun has not eclipsed,
Except to reveal the harm after it.

9. I stood in a place of foolishness,
Difficult to stand there for the free.

10. In a house whose area they surveyed
One day, but no just payment for a span.

11. O lessor of a house in which I was robbed,
You shall gain no reward after this day.

12. If not for necessity, I'd have traveled
From it and lodged in the barren desert.

13. My eyes weep for my calamity,
Ill fortune and faces of resentment.

14. They have no patience for awaited hope
In hardship hoping for ease.

15. They rejoiced in their adornments, had they reason
They'd not rejoice in red garments.

16. Whoever exults in his clothes,
Cheerful faces in women’s names.

17. They slept and were not aware of their woes
Until fearful awakening and panic.

18. They glance about for their red clothes
As tears flow for their loss.

19. All of Baghdad has narrowed around them
And today my chest narrowed for their straitness.

20. Like al-Khansa’ frequent weeping
Crying over the boulder.

21. I wondered at her, and two things please me
That did not concur in the matter:

22. I weep over fortune I was brought down by,
While she weeps over fate.

23. This makes me laugh at her saying,
How can we remain with poverty?

24. As if she had been, but where was she
In described perfect bliss?

25. Was I before today in ease
And clothes of green silk?

26. Or I did not recall how life passed,
As if that life was not of a life.

27. You recall bracelets were stolen,
And you forgot hunger in a month.

28. Your children then concave bellies,
Prominent spines, sunken chests.

29. A jaundice that saddened you with what befell them
Of ill omen and mournful events.

30. You counted a thousand lawsuits filed,
Ribs folded over embers for them.

31. You did not deny one of them,
Slapping it with ten fingers.

32. You pleaded and begged the supplicant,
Supplication made clear the plea.

33. Affliction occurred, so raging did not avail,
So seek the fruits of patience.

34. After hoping for a rugged place,
The noble throw next to ruggedness.

35. A land whose great kings are cows
Made governors of prohibition and command.

36. They understand not honorable speech,
Neither my prose nor poetry shake them.

37. I became most miserable between them,
As if I am imprisoned between them.

38. The lowliest ascends their ranks,
Until you see the slipper on the chest.

39. If I ask them for something,
They are stingy, even for a fingernail’s clipping.

40. Those who their seekers attained are gone,
Whom they prepared from their very best.

41. If a time treats me ill, I am pleased with them,
And I restrain the violence of fate through them.

42. I praised them and thanked their bounty
With wondrous verses from my poetry.

43. If I thanked anyone likewise,
Abu Al-Jamal most deserves thanks.

44. Of the people of bounty remains only
Abdul Ghani and his abundant goodness.

45. If not for his mercy upon me,
Then I and my father would be in loss.

46. I moved from his blessed abode
A refugee in desolate deserts.

47. Wealth being spent destroys it
With bounties for eternal glory.

48. I swear by him and refined Mustanif
From his generosity, I swear by the rock dweller.

49. If not for him, hope would not hold,
Nor would bounty be known to people of this time.

50. He remains more dewy than a cloud
Raining, filling the land with rainwater.

51. So spread your praise as much as you can upon
The fragrance of creation, the good scent.

52. I mixed his love within ourselves
Like mixing of water and wine.

53. For virtues the enemy testified to
And merits like brilliant stars.

54. An armor protecting from every affliction,
Not just cold and heat.

55. Describe to me his generosity,
Speak without shyness of the sea.

56. If he rewards you from his bounties,
You are rewarded in compensation and pride.

57. I pray for him and those who take refuge in him
In both worlds, the prayer of the desperate.

58. That he remains as I witness him,
Like the full moon or in the moon’s loftiness.