1. Your pursuit of glory has weaned me of jest,
So do not be content with some when I seek all.

2. Though the lofty spurn me distractedly,
The glory of striving brings me back to reason.

3. I think not lightly did you intend
To sever me with a piece of darkness without plains.

4. Let me be, though I spend myself foolishly,
Don’t you know restraint is in the spending?

5. For he who does not find, finds what the lofty found,
And which of the earth’s people gained praise through stinginess?

6. I and the lofty are but like an unmarriageable girl
Who is prevented from marrying her husband.

7. So before you I have not cooed coos and brought happiness,
Nor has my state borne a marked, special camel.

8. I have tested the songs and been tested by their abandonment,
But what I have tasted does not avail me for what comes after.

9. Shackles to deter the reckless, a padlock of reason,
Though to me more desirable than reason and conveyance.

10. You forbid, not gently, and turn away disdainfully,
And part where nearness gathers.

11. And weary me with what the lover suffers from passion,
With promise after treachery and abandonment after union.

12. If I consent to the little of my goal
And am content from much aspiration with the little,

13. Why would I need to acquire the barren
When I have no desire for fertile Zaghbiya nor fine plants?

14. I advise you, my heart, obey not the ways of passion
Lest you transgress, for you heed no excuse or pardoning.

15. Do not seek an intimate unlike your time, verily he
Is dearer and further from befriending the rude.

16. Do not accept his excuse after his betrayal,
Even if you find him devoid yesterday of twist.

17. When the corrupt makes amends he corrupts himself
Likening the sober to wine and vinegar.

18. And if it is said verily the harmful brings benefits
Like your honey from bees and buds from date palms.

19. Unlike this harvest and your different yields,
You tax the clouds or silk of bees.

20. Do not see misery as only comfort,
For among people are those who hope for life from murder.

21. And if worries have reached me despite their weakness,
Then how many a brave man has died from a glance of the sword?

22. And many are called who call to do me wrong
And it is ugly for man to speak without action.

23. They wish my demise, none but it, and if I die,
I will live glorious and virtuous.

24. People are but the fleeting trace of the fleeting,
Whether faster or slower in their going.

25. And they looked upon me in ignorance and so their setting slipped away,
For this life has sworn by the ignorant.

26. If the scales of night and day level
And the bent staff is weighed equal to the mule.

27. And the parrot’s tongue rivals eloquence
Tomorrow, when the thick-tongued is restricted in form.

28. And the hyena says to the lion of the thicket, “Turn to me,
So I can place my heavy burdens upon your shoulders.”

29. And the reins of affairs are tamed by their tamers,
While my pact with life is deprived of key.

30. Then oh my hope, how dismal your test with wishes,
And oh my term, how prolonged your wait for me.

31. For if I have sipped the bitter life,
And found it palatable, and death like smooth honey.

32. Without having reached me the sword of Mohammed,
My protector, nor have his hands revolted or feet.

33. Nor kept me company against his hands that bestow bounty,
Taking the place of fertility in the settled land.

34. A prince, if I tried confining his benevolence,
I would be confined counting drops, plants, and sand.

35. And if I said time brings his like,
I would take upon myself the burdens of the land as my load.

36. And if God granted people his qualities,
They would share no more than wisdom and nobility.

37. And if he had in his days a tenth of his forebearance,
We would with it remove what it contains of wrongs.

38. And if his right hand accompanied the clouds,
Driving them, they would answer your hail with calamity.

39. Of people, we found the most faithful to covenants
Were the least fulfilling from their abundant giving.

40. They lit the beacon of justice while time is tyrannical,
And they were gentle with us upon the ways of justice.

41. And kept me company even from afar in their righteousness,
While even close kinsmen cut me off.

42. And many have a near abode yet far-off bounty,
While many have distant lineage yet are closer to boons.

43. So I have clung to them until I witnessed their affection
Like the affection of an aged father toward a young son.

44. And the day his sun set, murky clouds gathered in his horizon
Pouring heavy showers upon the people in nobility.

45. His presence returned the sun so its darkness vanished
And through him gloom was dispelled.

46. So when he illuminated the horizon, his enemies said,
“Is Joshua in this battle, and is the Lord of Mount Seir?”

47. We said to them, “Nay, but a young Mohammed,
A sword against the lion, and the lion is like a cub.”

48. So they fled confused in their paths,
Though the confused may not know even clear paths.

49. And they witnessed in him Solomon of his time
Breaking a host with soldiers like ants.

50. And whoever was preceded by piety in command
Assumed the necks of aggressors without dismissal.

51. He possesses steeds as if their brilliance
Divides magic between the pupils and whites of eyes.

52. When he shakes them in a fray, his stallions
Are the fortunes of death and twisting spears.

53. They circle above his litter like Farend’s water,
A terrain with delicate blood in sleepy eyes.

54. And there flashes a rough she-wolf who has donned
Necklaces of the blood of the slain from rubies.

55. Goodness to you, do not give my speaking faculty
To one whose whole tires with some of what is recited.

56. Of wrong is easing the reproach of the moon with a blemish,
And taking the refined with the coarse.

57. And I am easy, compliant in leadership
Before glory, and defiant before the difficult.

58. And the man is not content with humiliation as conduct
Except for baseness in origin.

59. And if the early ones have preceded me in advance
To you, I say the late can compete in yearning.

60. And how many times has the heart’s friend tasted from a spring, bitter,
Then relished, but the sweetest is honeycomb.

61. And if those before me had enough precedence,
It would avail the perfection of creation without parallel.

62. And opposites do not unite after their estrangement
Like a newborn ascendant without an aged descendant.

63. And the view is complete whose proofs have gestured,
With some later given precedence over some earlier accepted.

64. And I have for you verses that make Babel tremble
And stun the Banu Duhl with their expressions.

65. Poems, if I harbored for other than you their intention,
Would be barren and my conscience would not conceive issue.

66. When I recite them, the paper does not understand their tune
Wailing with the rustling foliage of Arak wood.

67. Without you, my patron, the proudest of garb
And the mantle I honor the hems of your glory with.

68. It sings to every refined listener,
Yet no impaired tune appeals to the impaired.

69. I persist decided, determined, and resilient,
Radiant of face, character, and figure.

70. And be for me a shelter from the disgrace that struck me,
Even if you have no precedent of sheltering me.

71. Do not estrange me with distance from you, for I have long
Journeyed though my heart nor mind accompanied me.

72. I am no constant friend to amusements,
Nor one amused though some amusements may beguile.

73. I am the son of your hands which, if I show ingratitude,
I show ingratitude to parents’ rights over the son.

74. And if I doubt thanking their bounty,
I doubt God’s decree, scriptures, and messengers.

75. My soul did not busy itself with other than you though equals,
It was busy without your affection, occupied.

76. Brother of munificence, pillar of glory, son most deserving prohibition,
Ally of the lofty, home of pride, Abu al-Fadl.

77. I tell you none in time is like you, one of lofty lineage,
A lineage at the pinnacle of distinction, and no poet like me.