1. A brother, thirsting, sucks his brother's blood,
While four others, all of them are thirsty too,

2. Like Joseph's stars in number, but unlike
His vision here, obscurity withdrew.

3. Misfortunes courted them with sufferings
Where wisdom dies, and shrewdness finds its doom,

4. The stars appeared at nightfall suddenly
While sunset called for nighttime to resume.

5. Could then my sight keep hidden or my heart
Conceal it, when the sea and space grew less?

6. And each of them was Joseph when he was saved
Through exile and estrangement from distress.

7. If prison kept him, then how many were confined
By ships and deserts - austere, desolate!

8. What fair example of good deeds was he
When buying cheap was my benevolence!

9. My weeping eyes shed tears abundantly
For those whom I beweep persistently.

10. More lonesome than the sun's decline one day
An eclipse occurring, dimming its array.

11. My heart's own kin, though wounded, hurt me more
When eyes attempt what they should not assay.

12. Their joy in life seems but a sadness; none
Can heal within my breast what pains allay.

13. Results of ordeals, twists of abjectness
Are sweeter than continuance of decay!

14. If wantonness of power made them forsake,
How many a desolate abode they array!

15. If earth constrained them, earth expands; no sky
Has wept as they made weep continually.

16. If tyranny forgot from them all blame,
No faultiness could tyranny gainsay!

17. How many covenants forsworn they left,
Neglected, until negligence held sway!

18. Our morrows after them are dark; how oft
Their light illuminated yesterday!

19. Ruin aged them, they tell of withered faces -
Remote from them, ruins hold ruin's way.

20. To lose them lightly hurts each seeing eye,
Sorrow for them is meet to console dismay.

21. Hands they stretched out to each imprisoned soul,
No tears but only water hands convey.

22. Suns that alarms and separation cooled -
To every flourishing place merely spray!

23. How many robes of happiness they wore
Stripped off by misery uncompensated!

24. Garments of probity which naught remains
Save John's son and propriety's array.

25. If a protection of it they removed
In it and you lies my protection's stay.

26. A truthful patron wherein hope finds truth,
And intercessor whose troth will not sway.

27. If darkness pressed on them, you are the light
Illuming every pressing darkness' way.

28. If miseries from their chanting thronged around,
Your glance makes evident obscurities' gray.

29. If their remote cry faintly made its plaint,
Your hearing makes the faintest cry obey.

30. If they a dried-up spring of favor sought,
You are the bucket and the rain that day.

31. God willed that the most generous of lands
Should water those you wish to irrigate.

32. Awaken then redeemer of prisoners
Their souls for you and ransom make their way.

33. Branches meeting seas of bounty, blooming, trimmed
By separation - bonds did not waylay.

34. The spring made them its own and every time
Heat scorched them or the winter held its sway.

35. The zephyr neighbored them; morn's budding radiance
Made gnats in plenty round their thickets stray.

36. Misfortune flung them to a lord whose bonds
Were their devotion and unswerving fealty.

37. The book led them to a king whose decree
Demanded them - that fate make them its prey.

38. How many times the angry seas they crossed,
Where waters joined with heaven in boundless way!

39. How many times across a barren waste
Whose very jinn the howling wind obey!

40. How many times from death their souls escaped
Where no escape from death made hopeful way!

41. How many times the swooping of the star
In wilderness made hearts for it make way!

42. How many times they accompanied night's stars
Till daybreak's very brilliance paled their ray!

43. They minded them while I had none but eyes -
Those eyes of mine their flock's sole shepherd's stay.

44. Guiding them on horizons limitless
They journeyed guided, it with them made way.

45. No star of fortune like you they obtained,
With you, for them hope found its culminating way.

46. But from it they made calculations, fate
Called you for what they summoned you to sway.

47. As they rejected from your father's name
Before the "Z" an "R" refuted stay.

48. Its crescent they deputized you with providing
Shade, shelter, gathering secure from fray.

49. Remind and mention nearby dwellers in
An abode where generousness led the way,

50. Where wisdom rules forbiddance, governance,
Fulfilling wants, needs answered without delay.

51. When winter strikes a neighbor, neighborly
Avoiding what makes hardship hold its sway.