1. For your life, spacious though the world may be
It is not the world if the veiled one turns from you.

2. She has sworn by her glances never to visit
Nor be visited, neither in reality nor in dreams,

3. With swaying limbs and roving eyes,
She has known no heart nor accepted any love-tokens,

4. She appears not like the full moon nor the shy gazelle,
Neither like the doe nor the sand grouse.

5. She questions me, who are you? While she knows full well,
I say to her, I am a dead man among the living.

6. She says, who gave this verdict and what is it
That has stricken you and left you no forgetfulness of our love?

7. I say, my pallor beneath my black hair
For killing me in the religion of love - these two dictate my judgement.

8. She said, "Hush! Who would complain of wrong
When the world is filled with his benevolence and life?"

9. He who is the best of rulers in knowledge and ambition
And the noblest of those to whom supremacy is subject,

10. The longest in reach, the most perfect in pilgrimage,
The most effective in word, and the profoundest in judgment,

11. The blossoming garden spreads not its fragrance
With sweeter scent than his creatures' satisfaction,

12. Nor does the languishing vine moisten its lid
With a more generous flow than the watering of his fingers.

13. Had the Mother of Eternity sought to match him,
She would have borne only loss and misery.

14. O you whose firmness of purpose has destroyed tyrannies
And quenched the glowing embers of discord,

15. God has guided the times aright through you
And through justice extinguished misguidance and vain desire.

16. May He who appointed you over the affairs of His servants
Reward you with two scions who have attained in the world the utmost ambition,

17. They are two branches of glory and dew,
Two stars in the firmament of might, indeed the adornment of the world.

18. Noble were they from before their weaning,
Sworn to extend generosity together with both hands,

19. Choosing nothing but glory as their amulet,
Suckling only greatness - for them a teat;

20. And below you is a raiment of my thought,
Embroidered with praise, excellently cut and sewn.

21. There wafts from its hems the fragrance of eulogy,
Were it to blow on the dead, they would live again through it.

22. Eyes vie for the beauty of its composition,
And ears strive to hear its delicate phrasing,

23. Sweeter than the purest water on the lips of the thirsty,
And more delicious than the kisses of the beloved at the reunion.