1. She cried with tearful eyes while still frowning,
Tears detained by decay and engraved lines.

2. Every protruding tamarisk is as if
It were rugged rocks sculpted by torrents.

3. So every bending affection seems to tilt
A thousand ways and every pliant twig bends.

4. The raven called to the raven as he invited
His brother, the owl, to respond in kind.

5. They call to each other, enjoying this place
Where a disconsolate gazelle lows and sleeps.

6. Those dwellings have no settled inhabitants
Save melancholic souls and worries galore.

7. Their restless dwellers took flight, annoyed
By the place, as the fleeing oryx and gazelle fled.

8. By God, those who left one morn, bidding farewell
Seemed to carry something toxic inside.

9. A tearful cloud, if only it could see their nests,
Would shed its drops, though their leaving was concealed.

10. It holds back the tears that would otherwise flow
And turn the place into a flooding sea.

11. Did they ride away on their camels, leaving behind
A companion to endure sitting there, remaining?

12. He links tears with sighs and frees
A breath from crooked, bent ribs.

13. My loved ones, though disdain has become easy at night,
My eye keeps vigil over this disdain.

14. So ask the long night about me, for it knows
The sleepless and the slumbering well.

15. After you, did sleep visit my eyelids
Or pass by my dwelling in distraction?

16. O companions in sleep, grant my onlooking eye
A little of that, for it is the deprived solicitor.

17. O their abode, though the pact is asked about, one who
Does not respect a companion's bond is blamed.

18. Your condition in spring was serene, yet in the enclosure
Were lines of misfortunes engraved.

19. The breaths of the winds sculpted you, ill,
And the most violent of them came blowing.

20. An oryx turned toward the shade of your walls
And craned its neck toward the branches.

21. From jealousy over joy this knot was tied
And ended up in the hands of misfortunes.

22. News that hurt, its cloud did not clear
Until worries took root inside.

23. Two brothers I had, but he who was
Closer to me passed away and that is momentous.

24. When will my palms fulfill a need and attain it
While my arms remain devoid of fruit?

25. The cloud I hoped would shower and the lightning
Of those I wished to see the flashes and fires.

26. My breakfast was thanks to his goodness
So today I fast, abstaining after him.

27. The faces of my hopes are blocked and the ties
Of my aspirations broken, so my requests are barred.

28. May the honor diminish for Hashim's clan after him
For the greatness of their pride in him is destroyed.

29. May he who lacks a helper taste the bitterness
For man is blameworthy when he lacks an aide.

30. Though I am envied for him, behold, as
The envious desired, contrary to that, he passed away.

31. If the heir treats me equally, then for him
Is a portion set aside and that portion is known.

32. Yet his inheritance with me is a piercing wound
Bandaged over its stinging pain.

33. The epitomes of nobility, chivalry and sanctity
Perished, so your day, indeed, is inauspicious!

34. A man whose heart was not rent by your day,
His inmost thoughts are of unhewn stone.

35. If only your face would remain untouched by decay
And the tomb split open, you would emerge handsome.

36. The shroud removed from you, you would see our state -
Compared to our hardship, your bliss is bounty.

37. You would see our withering flowers, their breeze poison,
Withered, their breath foul.

38. Sincere friendship is but sin, and companions are regret,
Raiment is ruin, intimacy is intimacy.

39. Fertility is barrenness, wealth want,
Sweetness bitter, water foul.

40. The path to the assemblies of fellowship is locked
To the healthy, and the meadow of favors is rubble.

41. Favor is like a tired trader displaying
His goods in our markets, pricing and bargaining.

42. So if you attained bliss, with us remains
That which we endure the heat of, for you a hell.

43. O brother of no father or mother but affection
For our hands to cling to, of compact knots.

44. After you, from enemies, though I am detached,
Without the likes of that friend, I remain devoid.

45. So it is as if the turns of time
Have determined that no noble soul should endure.

46. May God destroy the likes of him who killed
The perfect one, by His ordained decree.

47. He finished off our finest horses, making
A Persian drink from his cup the dregs.

48. All those who roamed the lands or crossed
The settlements seeking a debt or vengeance.

49. Trampling kings, all the tyrannical
Were reduced by him to base submission.

50. Or one whose building reached into the sky
Would see his stars encompassed.

51. Prostrating on the Euphrates' shore like a basil plant
Steeped in scent, his back bent.

52. Prostrating over Hayyan's sands, Nizari and Yemen's
Wrestled until their hides were tanned like leather.

53. They stood against us, the worst of them
And the oldest of their evil toward us.

54. You would have drunk the draft of oblivion for ages
If only you had acted as the oblivious act!

55. If only you had gorged on what you ate, for long
Have I been troubled by the gorge of his gluttony.

56. None were spared by you, neither withered bones
Nor an embryo's clot or the insult of confrontation.

57. No indeed, nor the maiden whose amorous glance
Launches sparks by which their veils are marked.

58. When she frowns, clouds gather, white
Of disposition, their strike virulent.

59. With wings so long, belonging to one who,
When he senses disgrace, endures it constantly.

60. Vanished, escorted to his nest
By bloodstained feathers by which they are known.

61. The saddle of the mighty stallion is as if
It sprouted on some of the plateaus.

62. Slapping the living until he barely
Let the sword's terror goad them like a brand.

63. The living are warned of his savagery, yet no
Living soul dares attack or confront him.

64. He strikes heroes with his claws, so there is
No living man with undamaged cheeks.

65. I lament the dear one, but no elegy
Can be completed for a dear one until he dies.

66. If elegies are composed for anyone
Other than me, my poems are halved.

67. His feet and, closer to you, Ja'far, the best
Of people, in your service and his is reverence.

68. The caliphate's pen, whose judgment
Among its people is either delay or advance.

69. A pen encircled by the lands, protecting
Every region, every region, every region.

70. If only the nights renewed your joy for us
And the army of grief turned and fled defeated.

71. Bent its elbow and spent its arrows,
Restless, its white arrows misaimed.

72. Our needs in life are for you to remain with us.
So remain with the permanence of rivers and endure.

73. As for me, Abu al-Kalim, whose pasture
Is forever isolated from the scourge of afflictions,

74. As it spread from every landmark, embellished
With wishing wells and cairns.

75. They are the stars, so if a transgressor
Defies their heavens, they are meteors.