1. The meadows bloomed, so marvel at a garden that has no flowers,
Except smiles, glances, and blossoms.

2. And say not the flames of passions burn it,
For it has rivers flowing around its edges.

3. Marvel at its charms inclining,
With the soul praising its like, charms are praised.

4. They traveled at night, time a dark eyelid,
So stars and planets flowed in it.

5. They rose carrying in their eyelids a slumber,
If they were white we’d say they are full moons.

6. By their magic they attacked suddenly
With what magic brings at night.

7. So I did not climb up to the terraces while staying up for them,
Except for seashells, all of them pearls.

8. Nor did I wander around horizons looking for trouble,
Except for her whose company the full moon seeks.

9. In the courtyard and its corners is an intoxication that grew,
And that growing increased its intoxication.

10. You see a spark of passion that did not subside for me,
Despite my graying hair, but my tears are embers.

11. And in my heart there is no little nook of love
That poetry did not reveal, if poetry did not create.

12. Take from my passion what you recite as warnings,
Admonishing you, tested by crises.

13. As for anxieties, my worries never settled in them
A day, and precaution never walked in my longing.

14. If my heart refused its tossing and turning,
By my life, my life never ended in passion.

15. I am the lover, and I am not what is said to deserve
More rightful from you, blame or excuse?

16. If I said it passed, I did not mean a branch,
Or if I said it shone, I did not mean a moon.

17. I was created like a spring, except I have fruit,
While the spring is barren, no fruit on its branch.

18. Wealth, to the rich, is hoarded,
Wealth, to the noble, is disdained.

19. If I missed what they had perished for,
Then I did not become destitute, and I have this poverty.

20. I did not shake my feet if an abode prospered,
Or prolonged my expatriation if an abode was remote.

21. But the people of virtue, their virtues
Summoned my resolve, though it was stone that was summoned.

22. The voice of the caller called from them, so I listened
And stood to cross a sea all crossed before.

23. You see the ships sailing in their dockyards
So they sail high in their peaks and descend.

24. Each dark one carries it like a mole,
With a flash of lightning in which dawn has its rays.

25. Until I arrived and they welcomed me,
With a chest whose downpours revive chests.

26. The merits of my hopes were probed
So now the travel has uncovered their foreheads.

27. This is Abul Qasim, attaining
What flood, what sea, what rivers, what rain?

28. Virtues, if Abu Bakr preceded them,
No one followed like Othman or Omar.

29. I heard of them and saw them in person,
So reports were best if untouched by reports.

30. Thus they flowed freely, and I found in it praise
That neither limit nor bounds are known.

31. And poetry in it is short-lived, its life a flower
That withers, and in it long-lived, its life blossoms.

32. Like advice, easy to cast into wisdom,
And like iron, heavy in its weight.

33. Or like eyes, some whose lot is a squint
That diminishes, some whose lot are wide-eyed gazelles.

34. O leader, my description of his family guided
What musk bears of its own fragrance.

35. By God, your restraint, which you regarded as life
Is like a fresh track where the track and vestige lie.

36. You provoke with words or enrich with companionship
So your utterance is gentle assault and harm.

37. In your hand flows however you command it
What does not envy the sword its sharp cutting.

38. Such composure, from such composure, if
Spears fall short, swords are lengthened.

39. And how many peoples quarreled, so I said to them
Roots are where trees grow from.

40. In my expatriation, every trouble spot troubled me,
But no flocking to a nonexistent thing, and no fleeing.

41. I gathered my resolve, and did not fret over a tribulation
Whose fangs said, "Alas! There is no escape."

42. After what battered me, every battering
Its days the reddest of its red days.

43. I have been striking a group with poetry
If they were struck by swords, they would not feel it,

44. When I mint rhymes from their endings,
They say, "You overreached so cows understand us."

45. To you I came with it virgin of purpose
No excuse with you if the excuse is not pierced.

46. I matched it to you halfway the month, slit open,
It almost ruptured if delayed until the feast.

47. It harmonized you, so from it pearls are threaded
As you have seen, and from you pearls are scattered.