1. Is glory anything but a palm tree you are its branch?
Or excellence anything but a palm in which you imprinted its nature?

2. Or generosity anything but blessings that scattered
So none gathered them but from your attainment.

3. You rose proudly when the fates were humble
And the soul of the generous is virtuous in its disposition.

4. You were nothing but the sun whose looks set
So it leaves its mirror and seeks its benefit.

5. Clarity in a people who showed you a blemish
With a war that blinded the eye of the sun and muddied its springs.

6. They were the soldiers and the advisors among you
And their middle hands, so how bad was their making.

7. They threw you in the heart of enmity and lagged behind
They shot an arrow from you taken for its feathers.

8. They did not know that enemies are perishing
Hard to reach with bad planning to cut it off.

9. You are like the flexible bow, no defects in it
And shame is upon the archer if his source erred.

10. We saw you while the days tyrannized
With slapping the foreheads of its nights, so miserable was its slapping.

11. While we are hunters seeking sustenance out of hunger
And the yield of the hunter's heart criticizes you and muddies its springs.

12. You were for us pleasant water and a palm tree
That hangs its fruit and its trunk never shook.

13. That is why you accompanied time after its serving
And my hopes were youthful though its branch grew old.

14. And I was destined in your shelter to have
The hopes of a soul that had long felt narrowed in its scope.

15. So I parted from my friends, relatives, and family
And how many blessings go to waste with distance that wrings its udder.

16. And I came to you, cutting the distance in secret
And traveling the milky way when its pieces turn black.

17. And I kept aiming at them with a cupful of arrows
We rode the fast she-camels or their coats tore up.

18. Ropes that fold over ribs
On desolation, and the distance folds it over its hillock.

19. The night has an illumination with the flowers of its stars
Like a wedding night that lights its candles.

20. I did not dwell in the mighty capital cities
Is there any dwelling for me but what its expanse enclosed?

21. And I was, when I met you, like nothing I had met before
More intensely sad than an eye that sends forth its tears.

22. I did not mention the rest, though nights went by
Hoping that recollection will mend its crack.

23. And a day at Fuwaiq's coast which had revealed
To my eyes a mirror increasing its gleam.

24. And for the soft leaves among the leaves a returning melody
Sweeter than the most melodious songs' echo.

25. A meadow, when the morning breeze passes through its branches
Some grant the maiden her request, some deny.

26. As if it transmitted the secrets of its light
I imagined it where the beautiful wild cows wander securely.

27. By the highest summit, and below it the foothill
Scenes that make the heavens weep in agony for it.

28. We knew it would settle with tranquility on the grass
None would graze it but the heart in its grazing.

29. Did I not abandon company, I who remember
As the hot eye abandons its sleeping?

30. And am content that either death or delight
Is near you, while my hopes constrain your amplitude.

31. If I, having left your door traveling,
Encounter so many harms hard to repel.

32. And so many adversities, the young man feels too narrow to encompass
And hopes for relief only from God.

33. And matters that deter the soul and passion
Even if they seem ugly to disposition, are good to deter.

34. If the envious plot against me, I am not ignorant
That it is the scorpions' nature to sting.

35. How many sterile butters senselessly
Undermine my stability, exhausting themselves uprooting it.

36. As for those things you deprived me of and gave them
They became debris, land crop and its cultivation.

37. How many clouds heavily burdened
Do not rain on the barren land, yet pour down in the fertile one.

38. Goodness is yours, never was I ungrateful for blessings
The religion of the best of mankind, ours it is, and its law.

39. I do not equate you with anyone lowly
If your knitted mantle close to me causes me agony.

40. All the beasts of the wilderness call upon one thing
Where is the ape from the lion?

41. You are in my eye the light by which I see
My guidance, and in my ear, even if far off, its hearing.

42. There, without you, the songs of the temple grow silent
And inspiration is stifled in the soul and poetry in its echo.

43. My life will continue as long as nights continue
For they reap your existence like date palms their ripening clusters.