1. I have endured things I was charged with,
And now I reap what I have sown.

2. Woe to rhymes - they glitter and gleam!
My lot is as though I made them gleam.

3. If crooked, I have straightened them,
If bent, I have set them right.

4. How many words have I strung,
Giving them beauty and ornament.

5. They are not improved if I improve them,
Nor refined if I refine them.

6. My luck has etched its disasters on them -
Thanks that I have honed them!

7. It has thinned them out as I thinned them,
And softened them as I softened them.

8. It has thickened them beyond need -
As though I myself had thickened them!

9. I swear by God, they have become
My ruin, though I did not ruin them.

10. Never did I slight them with neglect
Or oppress them unjustly.

11. Deprived in my youth and livelihood
Of sustenance from a world I hosted.

12. What use my yearning for the world? Does yearning
Do justice if I yearn for it?

13. How many sighs and moans for it
How much anguish and grief over it!

14. I rise with no improving state,
No second to support me.

15. I endured its evil with patience -
If it grew less I refused it.

16. So stratagems fail the desperate
Unless I refine them.

17. How ugly! Ugly that they
Are the ugliest thing when revealed!

18. They have oppressed me, seeing me a man
Who never oppressed them.

19. They have weakened me, and when
The support of my father draws near, I weaken them.

20. I hope from him for things I have tried
Not for birds I have stalked.

21. The time the wealth stays from me
Is but a blink or turn of the hand.

22. I consoled myself with his deeds
After I had despaired of them.

23. And my lost youth consoles me,
The lifetime I budgeted for myself.

24. I thought of fifty years gone by -
They were ahead, but now behind.

25. Things became clear when I examined them,
Not when I was heedless of them.

26. I neglected them, thinking them guaranteed,
Then they vanished, so I recognized them.

27. Thus the joy of the granted is lost,
And the grief of the deprived trails behind.

28. If my life were a hundred years, what guides me
Is remembering I halved it.

29. So how could it be, when the traces
Tremble with old age if I stand still?

30. A treasure of lifetime I could have spent
On ways I managed it.

31. I have no excuse for my grief over them,
Over gifts whose plenty I wasted.

32. Except for overindulgence, if you insist on it
I have tortured myself and ruined it.

33. Sustenance enough to maintain the body in decency
I provided it step by step and wrapped it.

34. And I exhausted the soul after
Having indulged it step by step and refined it,

35. Not seeking wealth but only livelihood -
And even if that were exceeded, I would curb it.

36. I sought only what sustains it in general -
So I roamed the land in every direction.

37. Difficulty tired me out, so I wished for it,
And delay of fortune made me wait for it.

38. And if God wills in his dominion
To exceed fifty, I will halve it.

39. By the power of God and grace of a man
Whose lifetime, if blended, will double it.

40. In it is my purpose, if I tend it,
And what refuge, if I take shelter in it?

41. O only one of mankind whom I did not find
The equal of, in the earth I wandered.

42. To you I complain that I am a seeker
Whose mounts have failed since I drove them.

43. I have come to hope in you and fear what
I have experienced of states I borrowed.

44. So facilitate for me a livelihood, and call wealth,
And remember the Suman who loved them.

45. Eulogies of truth I crafted,
Not falsely ornamented.

46. I count them a complaint I complained,
Not flattery I fawned with.

47. How could I count them as fawning
When I acted and pretended?

48. Rather I see I honored you with them
By truth - I swear I honored them.

49. I did not err from you in my stance -
The heavens have guaranteed what I hoped for.

50. You are hoped for by her I shot at,
You are hoped for by her I feared for.

51. How many eloquent speeches other than which no speech,
That have disgusted me though I befriended them!

52. I was glad, hoping and seeking nothing,
And my soul yearned, so I restrained it.

53. I bore my matter with hardship -
When it saddened me, I left it.

54. Rather I feared whom I had hoped in
And my soul hoped - so I frightened it.

55. I did not fear in that disappointing
Promises to it if I pledged them.

56. But I refrain from a livelihood
I disowned myself from when I knew it.

57. I say, when an adviser blamed me
For refusing blamable earnings exalted by them.

58. Though far, my father provides me sustenance
If I lower my hands in request of them.

59. The fruits are on the branches of his branches -
If I wish, I can pluck them.

60. Not like fruits I reached the branches for,
Drawing them near, so I picked them off.

61. For his bustling door are benefactions -
They will blame me if I cover them.

62. Now I submit myself to a grace
That has delighted a soul I made bleak.

63. My soul promised me benefit if
After God, I employed it.

64. By God, it will not fall short of wishes -
The villages of its character I molded!

65. My father’s boons I took glad tidings for,
Though I have forgotten them.

66. Take them, and do not frown at them - I have given them
Beauty and scattered them.

67. Clear from articulate, conclusive speech -
I crafted it in you and arranged it.

68. How many a gaze I scrutinized in it!
How many a pause I lingered in it!

69. With the glory of your fathers I founded it,
And the glory of your ancestry I ennobled it.

70. I focused every subject on you,
But from your generosity I have taken it.

71. I have left in all that adorns it
No philosophy unless I philosophized it.

72. If I have prolonged it,
I have not condensed it.

73. Had my cheek deserved it
And aimed for me, I would have struck it.

74. O you whom when I praise
I am generous to, even if I exaggerate!

75. If they were a night I would illuminate them
With your name, or a sun I would eclipse!