1. Your place is higher than the heights of the heavens,
And your resolve is stronger than the resolves of the valorous.

2. Your chest encompasses the east and west of the lands
And the breadth of the corners of the heavens.

3. Your dream is like mountain tops, though they may
Tremble and shake while yours remains unshaken.

4. Your command cannot be overcome by the cycles of the spheres,
And your palm cannot be filled by the showers and torrents.

5. Your wisdom cannot be matched by their wisest men
Or any command that would suppress enemies and crush them.

6. Your right hand assists the embodiment of glory - it is his right hand.
The desires of wishes find safety in it when they are startled.

7. The refuge of hopes is a den on every hilltop
To which the anguished flee and take shelter.

8. You have risen above the highest of stars in elevation
And you were found when the clouds of rain turn many away.

9. No onlooker except that he looks up to your loftiness,
And no rest except in your efforts that raise you high.

10. You know benevolence in its proper place when you do it
Learned about where it belongs when you enact it.

11. Honoring villains only harms their kind,
While honoring the honorable benefits and avails.

12. Have you not seen the trees of sour lands
And the good land yields crops when it is harvested?

13. Goodness is yours - you have kept the rights of the lofty
With the hands of the lofty and eloquent tongues.

14. When you pray the horizons narrow for their people,
And when you speak the necks bow down in humility.

15. Courageous, obeyed, just, generous, pure,
An excellent imam, virtuous, complete in prohibition,

16. An astute commander of great worth - how excellent and lofty!
Praises cannot be counted, though some can be confined,

17. While grains of sand can be counted and gathered.
Boulders levelled by his hands are like boulders -

18. With him my lifetime lasts, while without him it expires.
Whoever matched his eloquence with him

19. Then the dim-sighted matching the astute is more fitting.
Pure of speech, the happiest sermon of Sa’di

20. And more harmonious than Al-Kindi in poetry and courage.
O son of the highborn, their calculations and their swords

21. With them he exposes the garments and drives away.
Numerous hopes have come with me to your door,

22. And the sincerity of devotion in them is my intercessor.
If I could see the shyness of prohibition in his living face

23. It would establish the truth of the matter, though veiled.
You take care lest their thirst goes unquenched

24. And the yield from the spring of al-Muradi is sweet.
Before you, the times and its people were well,

25. So no agreement soured nor place was distasteful.
My resolve leads me on while my fortune leaves me behind,

26. And my wisdom takes me forth while fate cuts me off.
I have no fault but excellence - though in these times

27. It is strange and unpopular among the ignorant.
My hopes are for the heights of this life and attaining them,

28. Not for silver coins and trinkets.
No gentle morning breeze or twilight,

29. No lightning flashing among the clouds as it gleams,
No sweet water in springs sweeter than wine

30. Taken in gulps by the thirsty heat.
No lush meadow, no voice of a singer,

31. No goblet in it is the fragrant aromatic drink.
But it is an endless holy light,

32. Outspread brilliance and gleaming radiance.
The accord of my desires to seek heights

33. This is the path to nobility that I follow.
I am one who when deserted by helpers

34. Binds my own wounds and is swift to respond.
Little friendship from men is plentiful

35. And easiest for them during catastrophes.
Happier than you when meeting with good cheer,

36. Comforting in times of woe and pain.
But I have not found anyone as faithful as you

37. Or more frequently met with betrayal and deceit.
So I have tried to meet death or attainment

38. With you, and the cries of enemies with you I mute.
I have devoted a portion of myself to you I will not squander

39. For other than you in life, though I myself am wasted.
A tongue fresh with praise and fingers

40. Whose clouds from their sprinkling do not disperse.
A heart busied with keeping affection alive,

41. Though if oppression wounds it, it is lacerated.
You have made me a willingly obedient servant,

42. And I am the most heedless of creatures.
I have a station above the Pleiades - its place,

43. While below the Pleiades your slippers are placed.
A chain of eloquent speech whose roses are sweet,

44. With a clear, sparkling, and diaphanous style.
I sought none but you before my poems

45. And none but you heard them and listened.
Adorned, triumphing over the flowers of the meadows

46. And gleaming like the blossoms of the basil and thorns.
If the viewer considered the impact of its phrasing

47. He would be certain magic lies in poetry.
While others are parasites of rhyme and masters

48. Of divers meanings, each according to his greed.
So the farthest extent of his goal is rambling

49. And pretentiousness in his purposes and ostentation.
Each is according to the measure of his soul’s ambition

50. And creativity - the strange and wondrous he creates.
I remain tempting you with subtle allusions and hoping

51. You fulfill what you promised me and avail me.
With you my two eyes are content without all departures

52. Even if we are separated while they tear and weep.
For the heart there is joyous diversion in hoping for you

53. And for the gaze there is pasture in your visage.
How often have I left your door while passion

54. Bids farewell to my heart and takes its leave.
I entrust it the love of equivalence though it wearies of it,

55. For the nature of habit cannot be effaced.
So I continue to seek your pleasure and hope

56. For it and fear your power and bow down.
However long time builds up its layers

57. And the shelter and resting place wear out with days.