1. Does it please you to grieve while contentment is yours?
The envious and hostile fall short of it.

2. You say, having exhausted her passion,
“Show fortitude,” yet lasting patience seems long.

3. You exceed in lamenting passion the extent of its grasp.
It is but a gasp and turmoil.

4. No eye has spent a sleepless night for it
when love is heavy, though slight.

5. You found a way to slay me, while for me
there is no way to patience and solace from you.

6. My soul is yours, so make it the booty of devastation
when departure from you draws nigh.

7. The proud disdain to cast their love to you,
though my abasement for you is but slight.

8. Since you left, love has gained but health.
Yet my heart when you went was not frail.

9. By your life! I pursued not what is past with grief,
for the view of the Commander of the Faithful is fair.

10. He is religion and world so no seeker has
a leaning for what he has from it.

11. You were named the Friend of God. Still you came
inclined by the blessing of the Majestic toward him.

12. And He named you Godfearing, so you
tilt away from the spiteful era.

13. Your obedient one, wherever he turns, honor is his neighbor,
while your disobedient one, if he attains the stars, is abased.

14. The eyes of justice rose gazing at him,
while the glance of tyranny awoke bleary.

15. Through you, the world shone and its light blazed.
You who rekindle the lamp when it dims.

16. So every lofty one, if you rise, falls short,
and every proud one, if you take pride, is paltry.

17. And any glory—base or noble—
points to you, even guides toward you.

18. Were it not for the Abbasids, Muhammad’s uncle,
the light of truth through them would have faded.

19. To you belong the two mountains of God that He elected
to stand with Islam when it tilts.

20. His prophecy, then the caliphate after,
and they have no vicissitude until the encounter.

21. The caliphate came to you by election not usurpation.
God in it is your keeper and aide.

22. He who guarded it for you has granted it to you.
He is pledged to perfect His bounty upon you.

23. Had you kept aloof from it, He would have led it
by its bridle to you, for God chose it,

24. and it alighted with you. Where the King housed it
is fixed, and what the King houses has no change.

25. Still, yearning for you remains connected to it
as the Friend yearned after the Friend.

26. May a sincere adviser who imagines
a grave danger in the world grieve you,

27. whose aid to your rule, my lord, renders it sublime.
With him, your dominion rises and extends.

28. He is the blade poured upon every oath-breaker.
By him, the hands of misfortune remain crippled.

29. So you have no opponent among the beneficent
nor match among the sincere.

30. Still your reign is guarded. Lasting is your rule.
Your survival as the heir enjoined endures.

31. For your servant when named, a patent was revealed
by which he loftily soars among mankind.

32. And one like you was given his patent, obtaining
so you still give, favoring and conferring.