1. Time has become new through your innovations,
And noble deeds you have originated anew.

2. Fear has turned to safety, forbidden to sanctuary,
Dry land to fertile, misguidance to guidance true.

3. Ministers with necks bowed in meek submission
To your glory - and we were used to hunt them as prey.

4. You left them not like rain held back from a land
That suffers thirst, but like a spirit left its body's clay.

5. You returned while sedition in slumber had embroiled us,
Ruining a life that was long deemed most happy and blessed.

6. You arose to restrain the flood-tide of events
When the days were refractory and fickle.

7. Shall we blame a time that has treated us ill
Save that it kept its promise to do well in the end?

8. He praises it though it now chastens him
Who knows not the purpose it was bent on.

9. How many great boons do we owe it already,
Gifts for which thanks cannot be adequately rendered!

10. Its misfortunes for you turn out fine marvels,
Its wrongs for you are miracles manifest.

11. The Commander of the Faithful entrusted the precious
Kingdom to a man whose knots no night can untie.

12. He scrutinized the folk and then chose the best of them
In creed and in counsel his house to abide.

13. He made ready for the Mission a store of their loyalty
That will outlast all stores, of good men howe'er multiplied.

14. You were indefatigable smiting vain doctrines
And striving against the religion's enemies full of hatred.

15. Honored ere the Prince honored you,
The sword was feared or looked for sheathed and hilt-banded.

16. When you visit a man desiring knowledge or seeking wealth
The eloquent is dumb and the flow of bounty stayed.

17. From good men and bad alike you conceal
Open-handedness while you hasten to aid.

18. The illustrious you confront with illustrious deeds,
For only the noble were you created and destined for birth.

19. You shot at events from afar and hit the mark,
Through your resolve - we asked no moderation of you.

20. Can the Lord of a kingdom ever be like an intimate
Companion, a loyal guardian peerless and unique?

21. How can one who aims at the like of you be your rival
When in all the world none has found or will find your pare?

22. Good fortune was yours from the time you were set apart for it:
Submit despite the envy of foes and their cords of spite!

23. In their breasts they hid clouds of malice,
To which too submissive, clouds are they in their turn.

24. Then scorn them - sure of their hatred, trust
The dove will outstrip the wild ducks home to its nest.

25. The best of the people are with you, opposed to those
Who sue for what you love; think nothing mean or trifling!

26. The pillar of a house will not benefit its owner
If he plucks up the pegs and the poles fall in.

27. This, for a man roused to the noble ones, needs no guidance—
One who since first gaining awareness has never once slept.

28. I by this counsel am him you know me to be,
My nature, like the course of Sirius, unaltered.

29. You have attained the Imamate in word and deed,
And so inherited this lofty, steep ascent.

30. Thank, then, the Friend of the Prince of the Faithful
For giving you a rank so far shared by none.

31. Judge all who seek to oppose him
By your grandfather's judgement on Nu'man of old.

32. By spreading justice you give the lie to those who said
Kisra and Caesar had perished and were no more.

33. Your qualities, rising ever higher in excellence,
Have brought you to a sea whose breadth none can gauge.

34. You have succored the maintainers of our cause,
As a glory to those who submit and those who renown win.

35. Were you not the builder of reputation among the folk
And the mender of schisms, pointer of clear truth?

36. Your views are followed, whether you teach or omit;
In the first men err, the second they adopt.

37. You have coupled four qualities such as other paths go wide of—
With them you tread ways where those you left wander lost.

38. No act or order issues from you that merits blame
Or deserves the critics' rebuke.

39. Your father is the crown the office of scribe glories in—
Your grandsire, the crown signed and sealed.

40. Who looses steeds is not praised for the faultiness of their hue
When the wide plain teems with throngs of horse.

41. With the charge of a lion, though few are their troop,
Who trusts aright in their bold warrior breed

42. Will seek no aid; they need no help. If they fight
To the foe they bring obedience perforce; if they're slain

43. They suffer no humiliation.
Deeds whose like is not found, glories a high palace contains

44. Whose strange features your precinct in plenty produces.
For these efforts all pretenders are barred

45. From your fountain, excluded from the garden you planted.
Some men fancy, with eyes that complaint of the dust o'er their sight,

46. They have looked on your plains - what a hope is misplaced!
How can climbing attain to the height of its goal,

47. When you tended no ladder, no help gave it?
So wide your bounty it left no scope for hope,

48. So boundless your favor no hand could you stint.
No verse on pardon descended but you gave effect,

49. No tradition was ailed but you set it aright.
I wonder that one with a miracle ready to hand

50. Can show rancor—but stranger that one should show spite
When able to help and complete the fair deed.

51. Though misguided, he still might obstruct and build walls;
Though treating men ill, he might yet laugh and play.

52. What full hands have you flooded with gifts and with joys -
Hands in thousands, and thousand still follow thousand!

53. Your purpose to threaten sufficed to deter,
While the voice of your bounty proclaimed you'd relent.

54. None meets you charged to commit disobedience
Save a foe long obscured by you, newly apparent.

55. In obligation, in extra act, in established rite,
You have dissipated the mists and their motley confusion.

56. Wealth, like a spear, is not for its hurler to boast of
Unless he has hurled it straight in the ranks of the foe.

57. God, your sires—how lofty their endeavor; how sure
Your aim; how smooth what they smoothed; what they prepared!

58. Their virtues stagger those who emulate them,
As the numberless count of their virtues defeats reckoning.

59. The poor man assigns the effect of their deeds to their means,
While the rule is to judge men's natures by what they achieve.

60. Like one who speaks without a mouth to contain his words,
Or who travels on when his arm no longer supports him;

61. Or a lover who finds his darling turned harsh
When he wakes, though he slept clasping her in sweet bonds:

62. Let the hopeful man with lofty aspirations cease from his toil—
Let the envious man give up envy and nurse his disease.

63. My eyes have enjoyed from your person a lofty delight
That has reached their far limit, however earnestly searching;

64. And praise of you, for as long as my tongue can devise it,
Has gained for its speaker, recaller, and singer reward.

65. It gives lasting access, though my theme be distant,
Is reasonable, though my thoughts wander wide.