1. The solace of cares defies healing, if you cannot heal them,
And the stress of misfortunes continues, if you cannot relieve them.

2. The dawn disclosed itself weeping for the night it is heralding in.
And safety relished the taste of fear to its harm.

3. And many a worry whose measure you cannot find too narrow
Has its measure too narrow for describers to describe.

4. Hardship did not come to you defiant of its proper bound,
Nor gladness repeating its favours.

5. How excellent the Ordainer of matters is in His gentleness!
He rode the times but did not complain of their violence.

6. His gardens were spacious for the foddering of fertile ground,
And his drinking-troughs overflowing for the watering of plenteous herbage.

7. Perfecting favour before its time,
Like the crescent moon completing itself in half-form.

8. Tempting hands with double what wish has sought -
Beginning, though fitter to restore twofold.

9. And robed in the gathered wisdom and discretion,
Robes embroidered with the exquisite refinements of his taste.

10. A nature whose pure draught I have drunk has intoxicated me
With whatever of pure affection and delight it contained.

11. You left the breast of glory wearing its necklaces
From me, and the forearm of bounty trailing its sleeve.

12. And the earth giving news - with a calling voice - of his praise,
From a passionate one, to whom the lands listen with passion for his call.

13. Then there shall come to you - from me - gratitude of him whom you did not befriend,
And the choicest of praise of him whom you did not describe.

14. From everyone, whose love-knotted heart is tied to him,
Alas for my distance from him, with his glance's end turned in my direction,

15. And an exile for whom the sky weeps because of his burning grief,
From me, and for whom the stars pine from his pining,

16. If it were not for the ordaining of his separation from me, and your seeking him
In other than my eyelids, unaccustomed, you would not have found him.

17. My son, dawn gleamed when darkness reached its term;
So rid care if you cannot heal it.

18. And I left the worry of land having lost its intimacy
From me, and the awe of sea having lost its acquaintance.

19. This one is on the flap of sail and spar,
That other on camel and slipper.

20. And my night I shortened, easing it
From the long nights of women wailing and harshness.

21. With the Most High, the Guardian, sheltering my resolve,
Until I won from time and its caprice.

22. A king who meets knowledge smiling at its seekers,
Repulsing ignorance from it while it chokes at its repulse.

23. And when a flash lights from his sword
In awe, the hill-tops are fearful of its seizure.

24. Or there appears in a cloud a spark of his blade's lightning,
The devils of error take warning of its striking them down.

25. He drove stallions to the holy war, and favoured me
With the dew of his hands under my shade's protection.

26. With his minister, proceeding unto me with his benevolence,
And his trustee, leaning affectionately over me with his care.

27. I was darkened, so I kindled the light of his brow,
I was thirsty, so I drank from the cloudburst of his palm.

28. Through it I requited hardships with their fill,
And I pierced the times with the point of its trenchant sword.

29. So if I come near, I come near through the multiplication of his grace,
And if I withdraw, I withdraw through the multiplication of his disdain.

30. And let contemporaries know, when destiny runs at me
Beneath confusion, that my streaming flag will join his streaming flag.

31. And if I plunge fiercely upon them, then 'twill be with his sword,
And if I return to the charge against them, then 'twill be with his glance.

32. With a courage, by congenital energy and sovereignty,
Whose stirrups my praise in description overtakes not.

33. And a calling whose direction I have guided the beneficent -
A precedence by which I have given lesson to the generous.

34. So listen! For to you I have sent it, she-camel, straying,
To distract you from kissing the beloved's lip and savouring it.

35. She has come to rebuke the bird of duty for its negligence
In an ancestry attributed to you, which she has honoured against being disgraced.

36. She has been happy, through you being named, with the loss of care, after
Sorrow had eclipsed my shining full moon's light.

37. A maiden who has put on the essence of thanks - which you deserve -
Do you then fulfil its right! And complete it!

38. It will surely gleam like stars, with its beauty,
And make the air recognise the fragrance of its bouquet.

39. And it will assuredly display itself, on the clouds, as a bride
Who, the like of me, has been cut off from the bonds of his regard.