1. Your meadows have no rain save the clouds shedding their load,
Whereupon the morning breeze and acceptance have walked,

2. And poured upon its pasture torrents
That know not what may come after their course.

3. So often have I stopped, embracing its appearance of dew,
Gone in the water-drawers' hands, spread far and wide!

4. Love of the green of youth pursued me,
And the pleasaunce of life lured me smooth and bare!

5. My yearning for every bending, reed-grove one,
Obeying my passion without demur.

6. A beauty starts to gently sway with bracelets jingling softly,
Then swings to the left, inclining toward injustice.

7. With blame I have loaded myself heavy burdens,
And with love what is more calamitous still.

8. With the twilight-gatherers I have never wearied
of the longest-lived most unbridled emotions,

9. Restrained by the advice of a slender-waisted one,
Of pliant figure and smooth cheek.

10. But how should the anguished cry of my love-longing
Be answered, or how should my sickness gain solace?

11. My passion is for a fawn who shall ever remain satisfied,
And my desire for her is lasting and long.

12. No path to the beloved's affection for me,
As no path to him who dwells in the sand-hill!

13. My wish is the wish of one powerless;
If power's wish is removed, what avails powerlessness?

14. Yet does love change with the course of days,
And kindliness turn the honour of princes.

15. Whose breadth of free giving is guarded, like the reputation
Of one who has released his mares and resigned his camels;1

16. They blame him for kindness, but he never complains,
Where are acquiescence and pliancy then?

17. His bounty is the bounty of a noble man; if he strives
Honor for others, his own honor is not transient.

18. Pure of intention, heated is his resolution in purpose,
Kneaded with clemency from the dew's clay.2

19. He says, he acts: sacred texts permit not
Glory to be behind any but the worker perfected.3

20. His palm deserves a kiss, for it is the pathway of presents,
And ardent hopes fly to it straight like arrows.

21. He undertakes the maintenance of the needy with success -
How excellent is such a patron then!

22. His writings frighten the encampments, so that
On a Thursday his determined writ runs vanquishing.4

23. He sufficed that he should unsheathe a sword sharp cut,
Whose end was warranted death, by his unleashing.

24. The shining lamp of mankind, wastefully munificent,
To the deserving he is a close friend.

25. But for his mildness the aid of the man of petition
Would be as no rain-clouds to send down showers.

26. His recognized merits spread not like ocean spray,
Nor gushed like the Nile inundating a land.

27. His benefits like a highway are open to the scholar folk -
Exalted pillars - extending far and wide.

28. Every time regards him with pride, so who is there
To compare with the princes bestowed with wreath and crown?

29. A lion widespreading his paws in the meadows,
Upon him the bushy mane shakes down black.

30. You have in him a viewpoint which disappoints the war reporters,
And a will like a sharp sword that does not bend.

31. O Pride of Islam, this is the pride of poetry, not what
Is said by the sayer of whatever he says!

32. O rhymers who have diminished rhyming and sold it
For worthless scandal, as idols are sold!

33. They have misled it from the path, and said
Disparagingly, 'He has misled the Evangel!'

34. Would that I knew whether the sanctuary of poetry is violated,
Yet the violator among them is no bloodwit!5

35. By my life you are more equitable to judge it
And more appropriate, your office, for its conclusions.

36. Your talents are those of Mutanabbi and Buhturi,6
And you are their peer, unlike other pretenders!

37. Happy your meadows, green and rain-watered!
For how many dwellers in the reed-huts they have!

38. Where no stranger is scorned in his remoteness,
Nor man of letters keeps company in his folly.7

39. A nature like the spring in its early morn,
So your life is the flower at its perfection!

40. Hear them, therefore, softly humming like partridges
Scattering their wit, reasonable though distracted.

41. No arid plain of facile utterance flatters it,
Nor gift of yours awards it ease.

42. It glistens resplendently, cheerfully receiving
Endeavors, while the niggard wrinkles up.

43. The years roll by and it has never ceased
In what the revolution of a thousand years revolves.

44. Remain what the wind sheds of the ben-tree's scent,
And what the morrow and the following exchange.