1. Appearances belie realities,
And hearts conceal hidden secrets.

2. How many a friend has deceived me,
Yet I protected myself without trust.

3. I forgot my pact with Abu Ja'far,
As if I were from past generations.

4. If your absence is thus for me,
You are still in a place I yearn for.

5. I think the scrolls in your abode
Are betrayed by the guile of a deceitful age.

6. If only they were pages of cheeks
Written on with the water of eyes,

7. They would not fail you, but you spurned me
And annulled my affairs through the years.

8. When you think of me, I seem
A burden you carry with frowning brows.

9. You dread your pens, as if
The basin of your pens were the basin of death.

10. And my letter lies discarded by you
In a house of neglect and abasement.

11. When you enter and glance at it,
You look at it with averted eyes.

12. Abu Ja'far, turn from me and from
A love you adorn with false passion.

13. Do not deceive me, nor let
A word adorned with pretense deceive you.

14. I am a man who seldom shows
Sorrow that my sorrows can be seen.

15. I do not persist with my brother in
Reproach when he is stubborn as rocks.

16. I do not buy the love of one who breaks pacts,
Nor do people buy my love with money.

17. One like you was not meant
To be barred from the secret of my guarded soul.

18. So do not be angry, Abu Ja'far,
For I have spoken the truth, the certain truth.