1. The stars gathered in their orbits
Surrounded by many nomads and knights

2. And I fell for the rising of a piercing star among them
It was the falling of a piercing star

3. Those stars, if you want their radiance
Ask the tears, they will bring down pouring rain

4. They made the sky their mounts and swore
No rising star can reach a setting one

5. They strode, their horses clad in armors
As if embroidered robes of knights

6. Of dark ones going with dark stalwarts
Or white ones with dashing whites

7. Say to the blacks, let the going be easy
For they have prevented their gazelles with leopards

8. They shook from their quivers well-aimed arrows
And drew from their eyelids striking blades

9. And shot with a precise eye's arrow
Bringing down a pouring rain with precise eyes

10. And I had clad my heart for a gentle nation
And learned that beauty is the first conqueror

11. The moon rose to me with a visiting face
So I stayed where the star's gaze kept guard

12. And I went to al-Mansur with poetry scrolls
Which I let down to him with the perfect suitor

13. And he granted me a stipend he freed
For me from taxes given to the stipended

14. From an agent who deceives him with agents
Or a clerk who seizes him with troops

15. And money is scattered in their slaves' laps
By Nizam al-Din's dispersing hands

16. O time, you allowed him an overseer
With blind eyes, so do not begrudge him an eyebrow

17. Is your command complete, O feeble one, while
These examples spoke nothing false?

18. O feeble one, craft is a slanted profession
Its wont is deceit, the place of the fraudulent

19. Your right hand is paralyzed from protecting its wealth
Intentionally, while your sons' hands are active in pillage

20. And I see you have empowered your palm with what
Your blind eye has denied the seeker

21. No peaceful face of yours should order me
Silently, when you hide a warring heart

22. If I stood in the diwan composing satire of it
A book of poetry, I would not have done my duty

23. Flattering hands have controlled it with their palms
And dominated it with overwhelming rule

24. Abu al-Budur, the damned, is adorned as if
He knows not the moon is born of passing nights

25. And Abu al-Faraj, the lowly, is seen conferred
Ranks and positions suitable to him

26. And in it al-Za'lamsh inclines by his nature
So confusion sheds its cloak's lapels

27. A people as if God poured their forms
And the ignominy when they were molded in a mold

28. O writer who brought the writers what
Made them most deserving of writers

29. Your fingers grasped the clouds and I found them
Lightning, and your palm a pouring rain

30. Far from you to turn your care aside
And sleep from gold leaving to your uncle

31. It is a stipend I used to await its star
But it fell and made my anxiety my stipend

32. And the night, if it does not come, is not ending
Ever, nor is the watcher of stars bringing news