1. Alas! Your gray hair is not disheveled,
So have you desisted from passion?

2. And have you stopped complaining of fate,
Then you do not complain to a listener?

3. You blamed the lender for asking back,
Though the borrower was not unjust in demanding repayment.

4. Rather the blamer is to blame,
Not the giver who takes back.

5. Lengthy survival is dear to the youth,
Yet with what loathing is it accompanied!

6. We love survival though in it is singing,
And living is continuous though interrupted.

7. When a man’s days are prolonged,
Gray hairs separate or make him bald.

8. So his love is mixed with hate,
If some of it were avoided, it would sting.

9. Aging is a wish,
Once attained the wisher is confused.

10. Alas! Your solace for the past,
Is that the lamenter gains nothing.

11. Do not blame fate for its betrayal,
For it was created to be so.

12. Indeed, sow praise generously,
For you will reap what you sow.

13. Do not think the son of Abd al-Aziz,
Considers your advice if not frightened.

14. Why would he not be frightened of his planter,
A noble crop, praise that is sown?

15. Indeed! Command your good deeds to continue,
For if you neglect them, they will cease.

16. He is called Layla, as if,
He could substitute for the cleft dawn.

17. And if he is like the night in his shade,
And like it in encompassing all things,

18. A young man who brought Baghdad abundance,
Every jug of his overflowing,

19. No guest had been hosted before him,
So hospitable, nor had been heard of before.

20. A young man whose asking,
Is always met by gifts from the beseecher.

21. The sides of his wealth call to each other,
Indeed! We gather only to disperse!

22. He spends generously, and his sword slashes,
Both peerless in their make.

23. This one safely adorned,
The other ready to strike if alarmed.

24. To meet rhymes with his armor,
And meet wars without armor.

25. Armor is only known,
By dew or patience in every tribulation.

26. When asked how he is, excellently,
I say to them, no, by my Lord's side!

27. If he smiles he gathers his smile,
And his clarity refuses if called.

28. Near in attainment, far in request,
He comes near in noble stature.

29. Like a cloud, his person aloof,
Yet from it came no pouring rain.

30. No flaw in him but a beseecher,
Meets his cheek outstretched begging.

31. Though he sufficed the beseechers,
Who dared and he does not dare.

32. He excused the excusers, so his gifts,
Have become sought by the seeker.

33. His beseecher lofty, flashy,
His attainer humble, suppressed.

34. His generosity took charge of him,
Through it the villain acts devout.

35. It betrayed him and took his money,
Alas excellent is the treacherous thief!

36. But it protected his dignity,
And spared him from any vile talk.

37. It did not undertake hoarding wealth,
Rather it undertakes high endeavors.

38. He obeyed generosity with his money,
So what praise has he not heard?

39. So let not people wonder at his words,
Tomorrow praising whom he criticizes today.

40. It suffices the noble when loved,
And suffices the villain when satiated.

41. He sees money spent like nostrils snipped,
Not as if they were precious cut hands.

42. When will he be deceived of his money?
For he is not deceived of glory.

43. Ostentation kills, sincerity revives,
So he gives and hides his efforts.

44. For musk refuses dispersed diffusion,
Except spreading though it went unheard.

45. He spreads giving and his favors,
Appear through diffusion though unspread.

46. He who does good in secret,
His efforts spread it though he did not spread.

47. O Abu Layla take it for yourself, charity in you, do not make up.
Well-mannered like her praised one,

48. Of honors not removed.
She is the era's crown over her lord,

49. And earrings in the listener's ears.
The aware say when I recite,

50. Can the rock be uprooted by the uprooted?
I attained your bestowal through his door,

51. I am no seducer nor deceiver.
I am not saddened by the loss of what is gone,

52. Though it was like a limb severed from me.
Because I am confident that I,

53. When I seek your help, will not be refused.
You have given things I presented before,

54. While you are the imagination that does not clear up.
I extended causes I made cease,

55. While you are the cause that does not cut off.
So what missed me is as if it did not miss,

56. What was lost to me as if was not lost.
I swear by God I did not neglect,

57. My share of you nor did I sell.
But I have an ailment,

58. And hope through your blessings it will heal.
If I have a prohibiting reason,

59. My hope in you is not cut off.
Whoever intercedes like you does not stop,

60. Whoever barges in like you is not bent.
How many evildoers came first,

61. While bestowers of good followed.
Whoever the nights fought complains,

62. While whoever they befriended mourns.
The nights' claws are armed,

63. And whoever came between claws was clawed.
So do not deprive me for my sickness,

64. To enjoy my share being sick and pained.
Poets strove to innovate,

65. But found nothing but what you invent.
You tried innovating wonders,

66. Beyond those before you yet could not.
So you became equal,

67. No innovations you tried were unattainable.
So do not seek innovation after it,

68. And be like the rest who follow.
I say, and the Commander pledged you,

69. Not by the despised nor the crude.
Neither by the abhorred or the aggressive, no!

70. Nor by the coward or the terrified.
Neither by the few or the humiliated, no!

71. Nor by the stingy or the greedy.
It suffices the Commander, people whose pledge,

72. Is every pasture for grazing.
It suffices the Commander, people whose pledge

73. Is every hilltop and branch.
So how can a people whose pledge,

74. Is every collected good, be disgraced?
An eyebrow pledged its bow,

75. And watched for abhorrent talk through it.
While your people lower themselves to their pledge,

76. Is not the moon from the bent branch cut?
The family of Abi Dulaf, a people,

77. Who see virtues as religious law.
If you initiate long eulogy to them repeat,

78. Or end rhyme among them pair.
You see in their settlements, riches of the wealthy,

79. And power of the weak and safety of the alarmed.
Among them are two tastes for tasters,

80. Sweet delicious and bitter revolting.
They built in the mountains, mountains of heights,

81. For those mountains are humbled to them.
They did not refrain from a foe through them,

82. But rather the mountains refrain through them.
Their ancestors reached a rank,

83. The ancestors of kings contended for.
They are the innovative in splendor of heights,

84. If others are the followers.
Religion is not but with followers,

85. But glory is for the innovative.
Eulogy of others is too narrow,

86. While their praise has ample space.
They facilitate the tongue of the feeble,

87. Glory that makes the maker.
And they restrict the tongue of the prattler,

88. Generosity that satisfies the unsatisfied.
Their eulogizer pronounces that they,

89. Offer them from a flowing jug.
While their eulogizer is silent that they,

90. Give generously from pouring rain.
So how they expanded the tongue of a person,

91. Exceeding in length until woven!
And how they restricted a person's tongue,

92. Though it was not severed by their restriction!
They were angry for loftiness and bought,

93. Eulogies sold but not accepted.
They ascended and bought them on their own terms,

94. Not buying them while fragmented.
How many fragmented falsely,

95. With eulogy though it does not rise high!
Their generosity did not make them high, but they ascended,

96. So they came with every attainment unattainable.
They ascended and quenched all beneath them,

97. So how much anguish by them was cooled!
Like the sky's ceiling relieving servants,

98. Thankful to its Raiser when lifted.
It is right for the exalted,

99. To be gentle and affectionate to the humble.
As if you, O sons of Qasim,

100. Are planets from a moon launched.
He is the full moon and made you stars,

101. Humbling in an orbit that rises.
Abu Dulaf clothed you his robes,

102. Each imprinted with his tranquility.
You were people with a merit,

103. Hope had despaired of it.
Among people is differentiation in what distinguished you,

104. Though united when will they meet?
The hardship of your equal was not trifling,

105. Nor was the worry of your neighbor restrained.
You walked the path of friendship and loyalty,

106. Alas from the harm of him you benefited!
So none loathes you taster,

107. Nor finds you distasteful swallower.