1. You still reach the utmost of wish and hope
Enjoying ease and hardship, prosperity and adversity

2. You have never ceased growing, endlessly
In status, wealth, loved ones and retinue

3. O you who adorned the world with your rule
So it became, embellished in its finery and robes

4. I come to you hoping, then leave disappointed
Among those who come and go, blameless and unquenched

5. Am I not the most fitting broker for your blessing?
Neither an agent, nor an aide in your work

6. Though people's shepherd has neglected me
My right is not to be neglected among the forgetful

7. I brave the terrors of a raging lion
And take on heavy burdens like a camel's load

8. I still rise up in crises, bearing them
With succor and sound counsel, free of defect

9. When the cowardly falter, the brave man's resolve
Comes after the coward's terror

10. And I am not like one who is reckless in resolve
At times, nor like one who fails utterly

11. However I wish, whether excellently or awry
My loyalty remains whole; my course, inclined

12. And if you confide in me, entrusting a secret
I will not expose your secret, deliberately or erroneously

13. So grant your hopeful suitor leave to approach you
Courteously, not ignorant, thoughtless or rude

14. Let not his request be crooked in its course
Nor attempt something patently impossible

15. Rather, whatever fairness requires of you for him
Of means, causes and attainment

16. Like restoring usurped property,
Releasing a debt unjustly imprisoned,

17. A stipend not burdened by bitter asking
Nor weighed down by traveling far,

18. All of that is easy if you are active toward it
O you who finds every heavy thing light!

19. I say, when a saffron-dyed hand usurped me,
“God is Greater” than affection or infatuation

20. The lovesick have won what they hoped for in love
So why care what distress has befallen them?

21. When men of play and verse defeat men of endeavor
As they defeated men of God and devotion

22. The most wondrous thing you witness
Among all the world's burdensome weights

23. Is a henna-dyed hand, usurping
Another henna-dyed hand of heroes and sinews

24. Alas for me! Alas for my fervor and wonder
That this state is not denounced and changed!

25. In my time I am usurped, and in my epoch
My rod is left thirsty, without water or wetness

26. Morn and eve I am wronged without injustice
By the minister, deprived without due gift

27. But for some hidden matter beyond my knowledge,
Though I have knowledge and skill in discourse

28. I still hope the morn of fortune will dawn for me
With a share of its bliss held in store

29. I hope not for general favor from it
But lasting favor, continuous, never ceasing

30. Nor has my mouth been influenced to blame
Until that hand greets mine with a kiss

31. So let my master command his chamberlain
To protect his veiled, protected face from vulgarity

32. Until I meet his greatest aloofness
With no sign of weakness or laziness

33. And let him make permission an enduring custom
Like the permission for nobles among his companions

34. I have not cut short or narrowed any respite
But have been gentle, making respites broader

35. Had I hastened, God would excuse me
In His word “Man was created of haste”

36. You know that patience comes from patience
So mix it with success – success is made of honey

37. No blame is on me – I am a man
Who thirsted five times but did not take to drink

38. Rather I embarked on a sea with billows
Whose waves cover riders like shadows

39. How will I attain what I hope from hope
If I do not attain through you what I hope?

40. How can my spring be lush and plentiful
If not so, while the sun is in Aries?

41. O House of Wahb, aid me against a man
Higher and weightier in the scales than a mountain!

42. I am deprived of him though his cordiality
Encompasses all – this is the greatest example!

43. His glances disregard me; his attainments
Bring me neither union nor messages

44. Years have passed in which I observed the star of your state
Considering it my allotted fortune

45. If your fortune was absent I lamented in sorrow for it
And if it returned I congratulated its return

46. And if fate cast aspersions on your qualities
I called it – may God paralyze it with paralysis!

47. Until God brought good fortune to you
And I was excluded with the longest exclusion

48. My right has been long unfulfilled and its defense
Taken up by one not known for defending with excuses

49. No loss that made souls grieve has passed
Like the loss of that hand, genteel and generous

50. Wealth, influence, and frustrating means
In the state of attainment – this cannot be borne!

51. You neglect me, O ruler of the world,
When I am your peer in resolve, not in calf!

52. Every people has customs you design,
And I am not among them, neither form nor shadow

53. You appoint me to neither commerce nor office
Though I am of little peerage and exchange

54. I am the one indicated for loftiness when
Scales are weighed, the exalted one of the fulcrum

55. My loyalty is not won by revenue when
Tricksters fabricate claims about pillars

56. My covenant endures in the way I desire
And I do not turn from it in the slightest

57. Nor do I say, when misfortune strikes it:
“I have nothing to do with the days' inconstancy!”

58. How many devices and plans I have for one in need
Of refuge, shelters and entries!

59. I do not deceive my soul or warp your fortune with tricks
But I advise my soul to guide it to you

60. Though the soul is not lightly considered
One who peddles his wares in fear, brimming with alarm

61. Has advanced in my matter with confidence
Accompanied by security, free of shame

62. So inform and test me – you will find me, when informed
Firmer than the sword in necks and calvaries

63. And task me with dangerous matters in any incident
From which the wild beasts and lions recoil in dread

64. You will find in me proven, expert sufficiencies
More healing than icy snows to festering wounds

65. Do not reject me, for I am not rejectable
Nor disgrace me, for I am not disgraced

66. Take me as equipment for the blows of fate
Dreaded, and for the shifting present's transports

67. I hope for respite for you, joined together
For the duration of life unto its respites

68. And that is your right! For God has favored you
Above the first nourishment of infants

69. May God bless you in resolve and bounty
Purer than water, nay more brilliant than flame

70. You have no need for praise that adorns you
By God, O adornment of days in gatherings!

71. How could that be? Each of you is an extract
Of glory, and each of you completely manifests it

72. You are self-sufficient, without any eulogizing
Like the self-sufficiency of gazelles from kohl

73. Your state gleams in the days' succession
As if it is the nation of Islam among nations

74. For all of you are God's saintly allies
Whose abode is Paradise, without change

75. Never will your state have a terminal era
No - by my life! Nor a timed conclusion

76. May God protect your blossom from Mars
And your Jupiter – for He protected it from Saturn

77. It has not fallen short, not at all, nor been deficient
Of the rank of seven, among its long-lived peers

78. Give the greeting of a hoped-for safekeeping
Which, when they see, will be sweet as a kiss to the hopeful