1. I was sleepless as if I spent my night on embers
I was watching an object between the two aquilines and the griffon eagle

2. An object that flew from my eye and soared high
So I followed it with my sight as it receded in fleeing

3. Why not when a despicable boar disgraces me
Thus provoking my rancor while I provoke severity

4. I will complain to the repulser of the reprehensible, Qasim
So he would look into my matter with the sight of a hawk

5. Qasim, I have exhausted all means
And spent what I accumulated of the endurance of patience

6. You are the man by whom
God mended the broken parts of the broken

7. And I am the one who left no peak of effort
To mend it had you found mending for the fracture

8. And I complained to him of every great calamity
Until I despaired of intercession from Amr

9. Thus was my reply that I was barred and so
A seeker's reply from a grave is barred

10. Though a pauper, Amr's poverty
Blocked my poverty with poverty upon poverty

11. For it is poverty of reason leading to guidance
And poverty of wealth tightening the burden

12. And it was nothing but the stench of his essence
And sleep from perfect praise and reward

13. So oh you who saw the like of me and Amr denying him
With disdain, won't you cry for one drowned in abundant tears

14. Does Amr bar me without the living being barred
Nor the horizons pelted with embers and rocks

15. Won't the world quake and its mountains collapse
And the lamps of the sky darken till resurrection

16. Yes, they have darkened but you have dominated the darkness
With your radiance sparked from it like the dawn

17. And though God has veiled the living without protection
With your palms you make those suffering drought dispense with rain

18. I thought of Amr, myself, and you
So I felt in my bowels embers upon embers

19. Never since I was did a misfortune break my back
Nor my father's trunk, backbreaking

20. Does Amr mount the negroes when he hasn't ceased
Being a groom for the negroes without a dowry

21. And he bars the like of me lengthening in your might
And your providing him with prestige and abundance

22. May God pardon what major sins he committed before
Except this one which eclipsed the sun and the moon

23. And I have been bound with a bond to you I cannot loosen
Even if I sought aid of patience and victory

24. There is no safety until my darkness is restored
Otherwise, know we are the prey of the crack

25. And no war but chiding a noble soul
For thinking its master said he was victorious

26. He surpassed my shoulders with his great boons
Until Amr's nose, that lasting wonder of the age

27. And my cure isn't killing Amr because
He will find comfort on that rugged mountain

28. And my solace isn't knocking off the weight of his nose
Nor my benefit that he be freed of the fetters

29. But rather my cure is his survival lengthening
Until he sees me enjoying prosperity and abundance

30. I don the garb of satisfaction, a Qasimi cloak
And a collar of bounty and a crown of glory

31. Won't you, for my excuses against Amr
Who tomorrow is a fox seeking death of the battled

32. I decided to forgive him, bestowing bounty
Upon him, while the like of me is generous with amnesty and pardon

33. So he returned to deny what I denied of him
Almost cutting off the words of my intercessor, foiled by God of deceit

34. And whoever returns, we return seeking our right
And the extractor of water must dig to obtain it

35. So let him not oppose me with a ploy he thinks
Hidden by which he may gouge with fang and claw

36. By the hand of Amr, maimed be his claws
He was surely tricked, a trick of the betrayer

37. May God water the garden of beautiful sights
And laboratory, quenched from tears and wine

38. For my covenant with her one day when I looked upon her
She said, come, possessor of creation and command

39. And had she not captivated his heart with her charm
It would have flown from Amr's breast

40. But she said, leave him, he diverts us
For in his face is our amusement from music and pipes

41. Leave the elephant, his long trunk brings joy an hour
With his hideous trunk, not his bright face

42. Leave him to remind us of the Denier and Questioner
And the cry of Israfil on the morn of resurrection

43. Let us repeat our glances upon him, he is
Of neglected beauty they spurn in the wilderness

44. And the like of him will not remain with us
For he is a gift of time, betrayer and cunning

45. And she sang to me in a beautiful voice saying
Slapping my father's trunk is sweeter than the moon

46. We loved the nape of Amr though his face
Reminds us of the ugliness of betrayal and treason

47. A youth whose face is like estrangement, no union after it
While his nape is union without estrangement

48. And she sang it to me in a second voice saying
I rejoiced till the nose of the patient bore the tapping

49. The nose of Amr saw to lengthen like its length
For a vow made by it, exceeding the vow

50. And the persistence of Amr's madness swerved
As the hand of a boy swerved from the line

51. And she sang it to me in a third voice saying
Tomorrow, Amr's nose is a breast on the abyss

52. Amr was bent with the bending of swelling spite
And his mouth lengthened, neither waning nor limited

53. When Amr walks, his confusion overtakes him
So his eyes go one way and his legs another

54. Three melodious voices sang to me
Praising Amr while he is unmatched

55. Had she lived a little, she'd have heard
The ring of his nape, each hardened in thickness

56. Such loud love and covert longing
And no good in love without loudness

57. How much of her spittle did his love make flow
Onto Amr's trunk, copiously over copiously

58. And they described him as a trumpet river unjustly
While in the boor were the likes of a trumpet and river

59. So in him is the length of a winding river
And from his nose the tune of the trumpet in unbelief

60. And oh, the wonder that Amr is a boon companion
While I am expelled, thousands with the exodus

61. And if it were said, liken the spittle of a gazelle you love
The fool would liken it to ghee and dates

62. Oh you Baghdad elephant, when your snout twists in fury
And Klawthi boar when it grunts in its den

63. And oh inhabitant of the palace, prideful of it
And far from you, not far from you, oh owl of the palace

64. You wrinkle my nose, a nose of honor
While yours is more deserving of circumcision than the clitoris

65. And you disparage my worth slighting my need
Gently, killing is more painful than maiming

66. I gave it to you, son of vizier, as a nunation
And a light accessory for residents and travelers

67. So treat it during your hungry month as an utterance
And fruit sufficient for you over the month

68. And behold the crescent of fasting with the face of
Renewed grace, or rather ten graces

69. For you are, when completed, most graceful of sights
And highest of places, in my brother Hijr's view

70. And each crescent is the new moon of its month
While your face to us is new moon of month and time

71. I was asked in secret about you and answered
Without lying, ennobling your meaning with my meager talents

72. I said, without wronging you your right, an utterance
Of honesty none would deny with deterrence

73. A youth whose fortune in giving and propriety is ample
So neither giving restricted nor propriety confined

74. He is the sea, if by God its extent flows in the morning
Then by God its ebb drifts at the hour of ebb

75. And its ebb is only the abundance of his grace
Upon the inhabitants of deserts and dwellers of settlements

76. Flowing when the hand of God pours freely
In its custom without brackishness or turbidity

77. Rippling and billowing each day and night
Attainable and approachable, prosperous of cultivation and seeds

78. The drawer approaches it near, skimming its abundance
And the traveler fathoms it far in exploration

79. Whenever you come proudly so I welcome you from a youth
And if you come peaceably so I welcome you from a scholar

80. Did you not see me in the shadow of Qasim's grace
I peeled the stick for the transgressor completely

81. Nor did the rightful judge me, but he was a master
Who refused to let them call me son-in-law fat

82. And I have countless army, save I
Go and come among countless in which is salvation

83. I hosted him sweeter than honey, sheltering
And befriended him warmer than a comrade against betrayal

84. Beautiful, partnering, his light winks the eye
Wise, knowing, steadfast of prestige and sharpness

85. His hands lament rain at times
And the smile of lightning laughs from pearls of hail

86. When they sell, their praise of him profits his praise
For the bargain of giving has gained abundant profit

87. You will please sincerely with his mirth
Better than a face and brighter than a chest

88. And every heart longing for him plummets
Like the lonely partridge to its burrow

89. For that, God preferred his diffusion
As He preferred the napes over the graves

90. It suffices you that I cast upon you his selection
A leader whose obedience hearts took without coercion

91. In him is the temper of Ali when tested
And the resolution of Abu Hafs and the justice of Abu Bakr

92. And my praise has no surplus in your commendation
Save that I am the composer of your prose

93. I say and you give, fulfiller after fulfiller
So I reap from rock while you draw from sea