1. The pigeons gathered at the chance, so they took it,
And strode to the lair of evil with ulterior motive.

2. Their claws took hold of unexpected prey,
So I wondered how it was caught and freed.

3. Blessed be the hand that helped it escape
From the stubborn, unassailable confinement.

4. As though taking revenge on my enviers
By fleeing and breaking free.

5. O Death, I do not blame you, for what befell him
Is a decree ordained and a right fulfilled.

6. I am free of want, yet the effort
Of the afflicted is but to return embittered.

7. My gray hair has advised me, yet how often I disobey counsel
And expect that one day I will be rid of disobedience.

8. It suffices the freeman that time should discipline him;
The worst of slaves is he who is disciplined by the rod.

9. Hastening gloom overcame you, O moon of glory.
What harm had it been to wait in patience?

10. The orbit subtracts naught from the crescent, nay,
It found you a full moon, so you waned.

11. God’s inevitable decree would not bypass a father,
However solicitous he was to protect you.

12. Had it not been for calamities constantly flowing,
Zeal would have folded the five fingers into a fist.

13. The stars desired, whilst orbiting the zenith,
To kiss your sweetest spot.

14. But fate, when I was enraged with you, struck
A decreed blow that hits the robed and bare.

15. Does the memory of your mother squeeze you, when she turns away?
Perhaps the longing died from being squeezed.

16. Your father was betrayed and you were abandoned to desolation
After the warbler sang and was ecstatic.

17. Send the sickness away, let it not mar your splendor, nor approach
Your two lips until it withers.

18. After medicine’s remedies I invoked
The name by which even lepers are healed.

19. Yet destiny says I must
Shed tears for you and thereby quench my thirst.

20. His death and my life hereafter
Serves but to deepen my sins and absolve.

21. Is he who never sinned nor betrayed
Like one who praises or blames with abandon?

22. Why do I extend my hands to kings and others?
My fill is either to receive or hunt.

23. The little suffices me, together with generosity
That gave life to the meager in our lowly home.

24. The twitter of infatuated pigeons—
And my thoughts pluck sublime meanings.

25. As I am wealthy, what care I
If my most prized messenger-doves are expensive or cheap?

26. When the coronated turns his way
Either he stands in honor or kneels.

27. Had I not been on this isle
Egypt’s thalers would dance for me.

28. But as glory is not seen here
And compiling their meager sum is a summary.

29. I do not like staying in this place,
Yet it intentionally drew me in and pulled me closer.

30. See how my eyes roam today,
And ask about the ascertained news, examine.

31. Yesterday, reciting Hamzah’s version numbered me.
Today, reading Al-Quraishi’s copy blinded me.

32. Had it not been for the winds’ caprice
I would not ride the jet-black or the blind.

33. A homeland without riches is dearer to the gallant
Than estrangement where gold abounds but with no escape.

34. If only Abdel Ghani would live here,
My life here, even if Remote Place were lost.

35. The darkness foreshadowed the morn, otherwise
Without its shadows, how would the light break through?

36. I lament the son of Intelligence, verily his
Wisdom cured the blind and cleared the dimness for the bleary-eyed.

37. His pens are weapons that terrify the foe
And his words, a jewel outwitting even the deepest diver.

38. A child—yet I see no diminishing of his station with gray hair,
Until I see the students argue.

39. He listens to the wise sermons and trails
Its reciters and the like, a storyteller trailing stories.

40. He frequents the scriptorium sparing it no peculiarities
If little ones are its special keep.

41. His gaze accustomed not to be torn
From his tablet until tiring from extreme examination

42. Thus did calamities befall him until they broke me
While ailments in his eyes refused to be treated.

43. Had he mastered half the jurisprudence before maturity,
Alas! The people of excellence are rarely advised.