1. O son of caliphs, I have no more means of access to you
Though you are most worthy, yet your state amazes me

2. I gain no benefit, though you are my ultimate desire, when I seek you
As the itchy skin is irritated by the touch of clothes

3. It is as if there had never been any ties or kinship binding us
No foster-mother's milk, no lineage bringing us close

4. Had you wished to draw me near through affection's bonds
Kinship and mercy would have brought me to your side

5. Yet I remain beneath men who, when they see me approaching
Frown and turn their faces away

6. If they hear good of me they conceal it, while if evil
They broadcast it, and if naught, they fabricate lies

7. Marking your aloofness to me when we meet
They spread the rumor that my rope with you is severed

8. So the gloaters rejoice at our estrangement
While true well-wishers grieve at the rift between us

9. Why not consider my excuse and their malevolence
Until the source of falsehood becomes clear?

10. No intimate, nor even a neighbor bound by blood, would suffer this from you
Where is the fidelity, the truth, at whose service came the Books?

11. I compose poetry, refining and versifying it
Like threading pearls and gold to form a necklace

12. I sent the choicest aromatics from Yemen to you
In boxes whose locks and keys are of aloeswood

13. With love and sincerity I am drawn to you
From the furthest land until I am encamped near your abode

14. I who lodged as your neighbor and guest under your protection
Whose home the Arabs could see in your shadow

15. For you to debar me was like a fire in the wilderness
Fanned by the winds, ever fed with more fuel

16. Yet your displeasure was not a thing I confessed to myself
Nor could I imagine deserving it

17. No, some came to you with wicked and lying words
Seeking my harm, and accomplished their desire

18. Never did I know you to break off from a kinsman
Or refuse a right that was binding upon you

19. Or afflict one who bore what pained him
Or importune him with upbraiding beyond due measure

20. I strove with all my power to please you as I should
And so attain the intimacy won by your peers

21. Yet for all my pure and true devotion, and my
Praise of you, and being near, I make no headway

22. I thought myself no stranger, now I proclaim
Aloud that I today am in exile, an outcast

23. For your denying me my rights, rejecting me,
And hiding your face from me, I was content

24. While people who in their hearts rejoice at my woes
Exult over me, from you to their very tonsils

25. I thought I had taken refuge in a sure stronghold
That they could not harm me, be they ever so emboldened

26. But He in whom I trusted to fend off those who sought
Aught of me, He it was that did not grant their wish

27. I devoted it sincerely to you, with the true devotion
Of one who knows where hope should properly be placed

28. Yet now you thrust it away from me, though I turn it
Toward you - for whoever is shown favor, him it graces

29. If you join me to yourself, courtesy's code it will be
If you reject me, then misery and homelessness for me

30. Guard your honor, and know that your treatment of me
Resounds among foes whose malice is sweet to them

31. Of noble lineage am I, gently nurtured, living decorously
Shunning disrepute, exemplar of high manners

32. Surely they know that privation passes away
While wealth's turn must come round again

33. What boots their greedy clutching of a right on loan?
Like spoils of war it is seized, then scattered as largesse

34. No harm to them if their neighbor comes to own
Verses that steal past the chinks in their coat of mail

35. They joy not if fortune grant them ease one day
Nor complain should they afterward be battered by fate

36. A people who inherited glory not lightly won
To whom voluntarily submit non-Arab and Arab

37. So let not fleeting bounty give you delight
Nor passing woes cause you grief

38. I have left my people, nor replaced them with any other
While Time brings about events in constant succession

39. So this is the English translation of the Arabic poem you provided preserving the meaning and imagery of the original.