1. You are still a savior when a desperate man calls on you
Wherever you are, and whoever supports you is concealed

2. By God, no good deed I blew in your direction was lost
Nor excellent praise of you has been described

3. When your favors shone, you told me
That through your grace, I was not made wretched

4. Let no one disparage my poetry and its purposes
For it is wronged by Abu Al-Abbas

5. When you sent me an auspicious glance
I was sure that through you I was bound and broken

6. I still remember a good deed I sent behind me
While your palace was frequented by the praiser

7. Money makes the prostrating bow down before it
While poetry is turned away and averted

8. And rulers command what is not right, I said to them
I do not utter what is fresh when what is fresh is rancid

9. By God, disdaining a little of what is good corrupts one’s attire
Can a little tainted water be wholesome?

10. Did he not come to me while the birds were still
The soul secure, the face veiled?

11. How can I compose my poetry above supererogation
When it is too difficult and the means of livelihood are barred?

12. If I take pride in something with no permanence
Then I am, when wise, confounded

13. If you had insight, you would admire a husband
Led to a wife he passionately desired

14. A noble man marries a palm whose fingers are adorned
With eyes lit by the light of God

15. Do you consider giving little when you are so generous?
Remembering me kindly is itself kind

16. Did you not glance at me graciously?
For the noble one is not lowered for my sake

17. You bestowed a great favor to exalt me
If not for your decree, for truth is revealed

18. Ahmad, giving is like a proverbial rod
And your repetitive giving is well-known

19. So grant it to me, for my soul is accustomed
To the traces of your palms, and kindness is familiar

20. My praise will not cease, wave after wave
Before the sea is exhausted, emptied

21. I will surely find your bounties
My eulogy of you is eternal

22. Praise of you has flowed that I did not fulfill
And may reach its ultimate ends omitted

23. So complete where you see its deficiency
For the full moon is complete when the crescent is formed

24. O Ahmad the benevolent, whose beautiful beginning
Is not marred by the evil of cessation

25. Spare me from pausing and abstaining, for that is my reward
Since to pause and abstain is familiar

26. I will not increase my inclination for generosity
Though with people it is now defamed

27. You who, if settled, your gentle shadow shelters
The supple branch when it sways, conjoined

28. Your praise of people would protect you, their knowledge
That your heart overflows with kindness

29. You placed a foot in glory, I said to him
The position you attempted is fraught with calamity

30. Leave the heights to Abu Al-Abbas, suf­fice you
Play, as Warith the lively is enough to contend

31. A young man with resolves in his pursuits
That accomplish and subdue lined troops

32. O you, my enemy, wait! He is a man
Who shakes foes and strips them bare

33. He schemes, and there the sword lies severed
Armor crumpled, spear stripped

34. So fate matched him with the vanquished and fleers
Sought, even if the wind bore him away shredded

35. Greet him in peace, and if you oppose my advice
You are clutched in the talons of the eagle

36. Take it, for you are a taker of its like
Sung of you among the noble as zealous

37. O most cowardly of men in blame and most daring
While the army and army in battle are entwined

38. O shepherd who in the morning the stealthy people
In their belly found, unrecognizable to the guest

39. You were given a trust but neither the flock is its honesty
Betrayed, nor the shepherd is known

40. O you, if one day I tasted your disposition
In it are two flavors, sweetened and bitter

41. O you whose clothes, neither the deaf appealing to him
Nor his opponents within are virtuous

42. I call upon you desperately, my hope in you
How often I respond to a savior in you desperately!

43. And I hope you will fulfill my request
That is thrust into the heart of one calling you

44. It is as if you have clothed me in bounty
As if it, no—beyond it—is abundance

45. After its harshness, everything has softened for me
So the tree trunk is supple and the bone malleable