1. My life, goodness is the treasure in every hardship
Your God, you hope for His grace and care for Him

2. So do not resemble the savage who abandoned his child
For Khausaa to graze his young in the place of sunset

3. And if you attain blessings in your worldly life for the body
Of living, recall its burial and decay

4. When the mother and her evil deed dispute
Then neither is she of rights nor is he

5. When will the base slanderer reform? So do not befriend him
For better than befriending the despicable is shunning him

6. And how many a dear friend did time make disappear
Then the days slew him and effaced him

7. And the guide star was not like the guide of ‘Ees in the exile of An-Nawaa
To me when it disappeared from sight

8. And whoever swears an oath by Allah untruthfully
To severe ties or harm his kith and kin

9. And whoever the abandoned sick camel moans for
In desolate places, only its moan keeps it company

10. And the poor wretch was hurt by separation in the myrtle
And the taut bow’s liver—only its tension accompanied it

11. So it divorced a husband it disliked, and separation
Caused it to suffer though it did not protest its suffering

12. So do not settle the soul’s worries out of inability for visitation
And travel by night when the caravan turns its course

13. A friend turned away from you secretly before his old age
But when the vigour of youth turned from him, it exposed him

14. And none has everlasting kingship save He Whose Face is Mighty
And His sovereignty remains over the passage of time

15. And glory may come to a young man while he is destitute
Of many hopes, miserable and forlorn

16. Tomorrow his two camels will kneel at daybreak
But does he have more than this time of his?

17. And nothing distracted him from his disposition after
He had composed a firm, decisive book and recited it

18. So if he dies or is killed, they are not to me
His killers, nor did they kill him

19. A hand that carried these creatures due to them
And were it not for Allah’s oath, it would not have borne them

20. Two vessels containing things—little eludes them
Nor are they burdened by what they hold

21. And he came with a false claim, claiming
That they were free of need though he had wronged them

22. I wondered at the archer aiming arrows at cattle
In ignorance though he had cattle of his own

23. He appeared, attributing good and evil to a slanderer
And they are not equal in adversity when it afflicts

24. I rebuked them with the rebuke of the son of Sab’ to his lions
And had they understood my rebuke, they would not have accepted it

25. Mountains of the loftiness of Ghaalib collapsed
But their steepness did not change location

26. When children equal him, the father is overjoyed that
He will die while his wealth and effects remain

27. So how many ungrateful children to their parents
Repay them with stinginess for what they were granted liberty

28. Austerity turned them away from nourishment disdainfully
And distress dragged them, wandering and moving about

29. He sees them as two desert wolves in place of his parents
Though they are no comfort instead of his parents

30. Nor do they care, out of excess love for him
Or hatred of them, to console him

31. He wronged them but did not equal it with partnership
Though they were the lights of his darkness

32. He taunts them with a glance of anger gratifying himself
As if they had worn out in the past

33. He sleeps when they fester, and when he is well
The eyelid remains sleepless from what it lines

34. If they claim, in his love, exertion, believe them
And do not accuse them of taking it wrongfully

35. He deceives them in the matter while cooing
Though he has often benefited from their advice and discarded it

36. He is pleased that the evildoer shuns him for life
And that he parted from him before

37. And if he hinted with a wink of the eye to them
Out of near abandonment of living, they would abandon it

38. They both wish—as an honor—that the despised one
Would put on slippers, though the ascetics went barefoot

39. He blames—out of excessive pride—what they did to him
But do good and speak well of what was done to him

40. They count him like the angry warrior in enmity
In their opinion, though he is frail and powerless

41. And he prefers the secret talebearer over them
So he transfers it from him though he did not transfer it