1. Abu al-Harith, listen to this amazing tale
Of a charming story that captured wonder

2. I yearned one day to meet with you all
As the soul longs for its beloved

3. So I set out heading for your door
With my soul wearied from its burdens

4. And when I arrived at the visited abode
With its customary welcoming

5. Lo, at the entrance was a black maid
Baring the fangs of her malice

6. We said to her, “Convey our matter”
She said, “Your graves are its entrance”

7. She rushed at us as was apt
And her aggressions and causes came

8. So we said to a man next to her
“For your sake, are you its gatekeeper?”

9. He turned his face from ours
And generally gestured in refusal

10. I said, “Restrain yourself, O son, restrain”
“We are no war nor factions”

11. Let us leave it to Qanbar and the lad
To describe the tablets and study them

12. He said, “Go about your tasks”
“The parasite has no delicacies here”

13. I said to myself, “Don’t fret”
“These are the blacks and their manners”

14. And next to me, a lad of patience said
“Your restraint comforts the soul, O noble one”

15. “Perhaps an hour will pass”
“Wherein the blacks and vales will sing for us”

16. “And the house’s inhabitants will decree”
“Swift relief, and learn of us in the abode”

17. I said, “With patience do you hope for us?”
He said, “With your patience it is attained”

18. I said, “You advised well, but long we have stood”
“Bodies have grown weary and ribs ached”

19. “Your staffs and smoke of cigarettes”
“Are vexing in this dreadful house”

20. “A band arrives, and a band departs”
“The slave girls dance and play”

21. “And I waste my time fruitlessly”
“Hearing coughs and yawns”

22. I said, “Idleness bodes ill”
“An evil whose flow should cease”

23. So I rose to pray in a cell
“Wherein an altar could be seen in the house”

24. Long was my prayer until I took a stand
“That stripped the flesh from my bones”

25. And after the prayers came a great clamor
“Of chanting, most melodious”

26. Until the jinn shrieked in terror
“And fled the dreadful house”

27. And the earth quaked a violent quaking
“Seizing the edifices by their pillars”

28. Yet this availed naught, and long we stayed
“As years and epochs passed”

29. And we built for ourselves a quarter
“Hewing its wood from India”

30. And around it, a verdant garden
“Lush, heavy with fruit”

31. And I took in my dwelling a wife
“Who lived long and bore offspring”

32. Yet no permission from you was granted us
“And the veil in the house grew weak”

33. And when we despaired, we returned
“To lands whose affairs are far-reaching”

34. And upon returning, we knew not the way
“And the roadmarks were gone”

35. No surprise - for years
“Turn the wheel upon mankind”

36. My abode strayed until finally appeared
“Traces of its familiar thresholds”

37. And I found all my children
“Grown old, their youth turned gray”

38. And I found my books amassed
“It was said mice had nibbled them”

39. So this, O Abu al-Harith, is the tale’s end
“Of a wondrous story, long drawn out”

40. But all the afflictions of Abu Muslim
“Were by your sleep and self caused”

41. May the Truth extend to yearning hearts
The repository of lights and aid

42. Taking hearts to Him
After annihilating existence, annihilating ashes

43. After effacing traces in seeking
The Essence, and the seeker becoming the Essence's aim

44. After realizing the Truth's oneness with
Creation, and annulling the oneness of individuation

45. Ah, love cannot be consoled - ah!
And "ah" for one in amity is forbidden

46. I have a soul melted by ardent passion
Naught remains but the throbbing of my heart

47. I rose to complain of my secret to passion itself
So complaining became like rubbing flint on steel

48. Then the Truth cast its protection upon me:
"Have patience in My love, O intended one"

49. O rider traveling to us
Tell me, have you reached that valley?

50. Have you journeyed from yourself one span toward us?
You remain centered in passion, persisting

51. If you probed the depths from yourself you would see
The corpses of calamities like pegs

52. If you shed your black garb, the darkness
There among men, amid the throng, would lift

53. You are the key to treasure, if only you knew
The axis of issuance and income

54. You are of us, and we of you, but
The state of separation intervenes

55. If we opposed your aloofness, we would not demand
Sincerity of claim nor amity's purity

56. The Truth saw in you no speck but Him
So nearness is the essence of distance

57. So free yourself, O Muhammadan, of fault
And transcend above the servile herd

58. And perish in us - no life for the living -
The life of the living is through depletion

59. And veil yourself from me, but do not veil
Yourself from me through impression and origination

60. Leave that and these and form and name - in the field
Is none but my steed

61. And burn from my love, I alone
In fires' folds in every vale

62. For in the health of love, one is tormented -
The torment of rejection and separation

63. And if love is true, the bliss of delight and intimacy
Will not avail beside the dance

64. Within each atom of my existence is
A wisdom I have veiled from My servants

65. It crumbles with passion, and passion from
You is a valley, while you from it are a valley

66. If passion proved true, my love would suffice you
And you would adhere in passion to My will

67. We seek union, and the station is rejection
Before the arrows are spent and the spears broken

68. Lord, I am here! The Truth's conclusive argument
And the eyes of majesty lie in wait

69. Whosoever takes me as his master, upon him
Dawns the sun of guidance of the Truth's perfections

70. Who am I, while "I" is annihilation and effacement
In the station of torment and martyrdom

71. Who am I, while "I" is fiction and illusion
In the station of address and guidance

72. Who am I, while "I" is metaphor and shadow
In the station of distance and creation

73. Rather, I am but a relation to the Truth's effect -
A martyr of the Truth in singularity

74. And I, insofar as my ascription is to Him, am
The Angel of Praise, laudation, and glory

75. And I, insofar as my ascription is to Him, am
Every blemish and disgrace in estimation

76. And I, insofar as my ascription is to Him, am
The reviver of spirits, resurrector of bodies

77. The Truth's relation made me recite Psalms
Among the inanimate with celestial voice

78. If there is in existence a witnessing hearing
Then I in existence am the finest singer

79. I softened iron only because
I sang in the chant of the blacksmith

80. The heir of grace, perfection, and wisdom
From his grandfather the guiding Prophet

81. The conduit of wayfarers to the Truth
And discloser of the dawning-places of aid

82. Extending from his overflow upon the cosmos a sea
In a cup like glowing embers

83. We witnessed from his extension the confluence
Of the two seas from the dark unseen beyond

84. He whom the Muhammadan watered with a sea
Whose freshness does not stale for the returnees

85. So he received those knowledges like
The opening of the blind, the unseen of the unique

86. From the primordial chaos of prophecy
Before the manifestation of the genesis of being

87. The source of grace is Ahmad son of Abu Bakr
Noblest of fathers and ancestors

88. 'Alawi, Muhammadi - upon him
From the two ascriptions are the marks of rectitude

89. He gathered knowledge in the measure of his
Godwariness - and to God belongs that measure

90. And acquired riches from the esoteric sciences
Adorning hearts of intimates therewith

91. He stripped his soul of its shoulders, whereupon
The subtleties of aid alighted upon it

92. And he received from his Lord words
Which the overflowing cast in the mold of ink

93. There emerged from the tent pegs of divine inspiration poems
That, having lost whom they were about, mourn

94. So they flocked to glean from him secrets
Unique in his peerless mourning

95. Be a commentary upon them and magnify by this commentary
A treasure whose outpouring will never be exhausted

96. The Truth flashes from its springs the sublime
And the wise imbibe wisdom for the servants

97. He stood by Shari'a and Truth, calling
With both tongues to guidance and probity

98. He formed a light wherein the recesses of its corners
Were the circles of sanctity

99. Collector of the treasures of knowledge and wisdom,
A treasure remaining for the Day of Return

100. He grasped from the intimates' knowledges what
Opens for wayfarers the door of desire

101. And Mecca yearned for its dissemination
That its lights may flow through the lands

102. So it set upon him the constellations
Of printing fortune and blessings

103. The date of its publication came in a line
That crowned the diadem of composition

104. Its flowing style, soothing as ginger -
So drink it from the basin of loving cups!