1. Do homes inform their dwellers when to move on?
Or do dwelling-places bid farewell to those who live in them?

2. When their landmarks became strange before my eyes,
my tears flowed along their channels.

3. Homes exist only for the love of those who live in them,
Dwellings only for affection for those inside.

4. O Abode of Glory in this world! Now lie deserted,
for even the ruins call out for those who once called out to them.

5. Where is she who wearied me with her reproaches
for my aloofness, while the cold made her delicate body shiver?

6. A houri with the hair of a temptress,
black tresses, with a radiant streak of white.

7. The full moon borrowed its splendor from her face,
magic from her glance,

8. musk from her breath, wine from her lips.
Now the East wind knows, and those who dwell in the wastes,

9. that she was dew and tears congealed.
The glory of San'a is still undiminished,

10. its meadows still verdant and watered.
There I met outstretched hands with a ready smile,

11. and hospitality to guests in a thousand places.
Whenever I called out, my voice carried far,

12. stopping the stampede and turning the horses back to their pastures.
Without the generosity of Jamal al-Din,

13. no noble man would be unsullied by baseness.
In his hand the spear shaft seems to bend

14. as his Indian blade makes the keen steel pliant.
The finest praise, though it falls short,

15. through his bounty he makes it binding, raising it on high.
Wronged rhymes come to him aggrieved

16. by vile poets, and he makes them good, setting things right.
To God I complain of my stay here,

17. of this place where I must dwell, and of all I inherit.
The favors of San'an are undiminished,

18. bounty protects them, and bounty sustains them.
Its clouds precede every request for rain,

19. and its lighting-flashes meet it halfway.
The giver of pasture, horses, and lavish gifts

20. gives us all we ask for, though we cannot reckon them.
People fail to see the obvious in all they have seen.

21. The sun itself draws a curtain across its burning face.
They say gifts are measured by the merit of those who seek them,

22. but I say their measure is the merit of the giver.
The branches bear witness with their fragrance

23. to the wholesomeness of the stock, when they bring fruit.
No country has been impoverished by bounty,