1. Did you know, in the blowing wind’s breath
A soul fans the embers of separation’s fire

2. That brought you greetings from the Hijaz’ fragrance
That stirred the meadows of waving grass

3. By God, tell me, how can the fires of passion
Burn between the wind in the wilderness and the flames?

4. And the gray-beaked bird thinks
It has descended to the spring of my pouring tears

5. It told what it hides and cried in the darkness
So I saw a prayer like Noah’s on the horizon

6. My tears spoke what my heart hides
Though long they were silent, never confessing

7. Wondrous are my eyelids that bore witness
Of a throbbing heart behind my ribs, wounded

8. And before, the scribes of my tears
Wrote in their lines the jewels of wounding

9. Passion was generous with me after I left
A generosity that wearies the winds

10. There are the dwellings, my heart knows no peace after them
Neither distracted nor comforted there

11. Enough for me, though yearning, to visit in my thoughts
While my body is held hostage, absent

12. So I pour into it tales of my youth
And stir into it the wings of my lament

13. In gloom that almost led me astray
If not for a flashing lightning bolt’s glimmer

14. The stars in its atmosphere trembled as if
They were leaves flipped by a miserly hand

15. I was patient with its violence, though it swelled
And crashed, I repelled its clouds with glory

16. Until the gray hand on its horizon
Wiped a face for the dawn, radiant

17. I sensed fulfillment and thanked the coming of night
And deterred all wishes with prayer

18. So it was as if my night was the lineage of my poem
And morning in it was deliverance for my praise

19. When I alighted in the best land ever trod
By the bridle of every worthy and honest folk

20. The mercy of the God of the Throne with His servants
And His trustee on earth for what He reveals

21. The greatest sign whose lights
Shone, its rays over the page of revelation

22.
Lord of the abode of truth and the sign by which

23. The leaves of every authentic scripture were graced
The cave of mankind when a dilemma intensifies

24. They head to the court of His open door
Seeking from it, from a Merciful’s likeness

25. Bounties of pardons for sins, all-encompassing
My regrets for a life I wasted

26. In playgrounds of frivolous ease
O Chider of wickedness roaming the vacant land

27. As night stumbles into the excesses of sprawling sands
Reaching the Best of Creation ahead of all

28. While the caravan rests between saddle and bed
In the sanctuary of that grave I have a devotion

29. If it brings me close, I am the son of one brought near
With the Trustee Spirit's landing place, a pact

30. In it safety and security for my soul
O elect of God, secure is his station

31. O best trustee and most sincere counsel
I loaned to you God the truth of my love

32. Can anything but prosperity run its course in you?
Never, it cannot be that my efforts fail

33. Or I see my ambitions as anything but thriving

34. If the ugliness of what my hands did
Ever prevents you, forgiveness is not uncomely

35. Oh my shame at the thinking I enticed
With my blatant passion, unrestrained

36. Its steps fell short after I plotted it
From every deep ambition, fervently zealous

37. The verses of the Book have praised you, what can
My poem's rhythm add, praising your sublimity?

38. If God's Book has praised you eloquently
All speech falls short, every orator

39. May God bless you whenever the morning breeze blows
Rustling in a branch for the gardens, joyous