1. Alas! Who will care for my soul and its wounds?
Who will tend to my tears as they flow?

2. When longing stirs love in the heart
And inflames it intensely in its coals

3. I was kept awake by lightning that lit up the darkness
And took away the kohl of my eyelids

4. It moved about as the darkness spread
Tearing the flags of its clothes

5. As though the clouds with it were maidens
Yearning amidst their companions

6. As though the lightning were swords of the clouds
When it shook them then cast them aside

7. And the pouring rain was like snarling
The roar of thunder in its outbursts

8. As though its flashes in the night air
Were torches of its reveling throngs

9. They quenched the thirst of the sand dunes
And cooled the heat of their hills

10. They revealed the expanse of the meadows
And spread the banners of their pastures

11. As though its rain pools in its corners
Were cheeks whose necklaces were unveiled

12. So it swayed upon an aching, bending bough
Graceful, with its tents and dwellings

13. Adorned between its valleys
And the fragrance of its earth and pools

14. With a yellow that had matured not fully grown
Prolonged by the passage of its eras

15. Hospitality, when associated with it
Became a most sacred tradition

16. As though its water-bearers apportioned
The rays of the sun for its drinkers

17. A cloud wandering over us
As though the morning were amidst its clothes

18. When it unleashes the magic of its eyes
Gesturing coquettishly with its glances

19. It beckoned to me, but I declined
The ways of the crazed and their manners

20. Say to those Hashimites who strayed
Seeking to catch up with its people

21. Are its centers like its edges?
Are its leaders like its stragglers?

22. Its Abbas like its Abu Harb,
Ali and the killer of its foes?

23. Its foremost believer in God
And first destroyer of its idols?

24. O clansmen of Hashim, you have ignored
So leave the honors to their people

25. Your Abbas was the Prophet's sword
Whenever war bared its fang

26. Your Abbas at Badr was its protector
Shielding the regiments from its campaign

27. Your Abbas, killer of the pagans
Openly, and seizer of its spoils

28. Your Abbas, executor of the Prophet
And granter of gifts to its seekers

29. Your Abbas clarified ambiguities
And opened the locked gates of its doors

30. I am surprised by one who commits treason
Devious in speech, a fabricator

31. Who composes the lies of his words
And perfects the choreography of his lies

32. You have sanctity, O sons of his daughter
But the sons of the uncle are more worthy of it

33. And how can the paternal arrows
Belong to the sons of the uncle?

34. Is this not what God revealed in His verses?
Do you turn blind to the detail of its explanation?

35. Abdullah spoke wrongfully
And measured the steeds with its riders

36. While we wore the clothes of the Prophet
You snatched away its robes

37. We are his sons and heirs
And the heirs are most entitled to it

38. The imamate belongs to us, not you
We have the greatest right to its mantle

39. What sons of an uncle have the likes
Of the Chaste One and her offspring?

40. What uncles have the Prophet's successor
As a father they boasted of?

41. Are we not the core of Hashim's clan
And your masters with genealogists?

42. Did we not precede in its goals?
Did we not excel in its accounts?

43. Through us you prayed and sought rain
Rulers are not like their scribes

44. Do not ruin yourselves with lies
For that is most punishing for the spirit

45. You are like the rhyme scheme of pottery verses
While we are their eloquent composition