1. Aba Al-Saqr, I do not see you as generous
Praise belongs to others, not to the rewarded one

2. I almost perished from the bitterness of your disdain
That kept me from enjoying wine

3. If I knew someone else generous like you
I would have patience and console my grieving heart

4. But I was denied generosity such as yours
And deprived by your hand of gifts

5. I had little hope of generosity
If a shower from you missed me

6. And where is generosity compared to you
Who surpasses clouds with lightning?

7. So your enviers find in you
Nothing to criticize but flowing generosity

8. Yet may God protect you from those enviers
And reward their prayers however much they malign

9. And if you made me suffer thirst
While allowing others to drink from your pools

10. You drive them to the meadow forcibly
Wronging them and pouring venom in

11. And I show them mercy when they are branded
Pardoning such marks upon them

12. And I endow them generously thereafter
With clemency when the pearl disobeys the thread

13. So why are your gifts forbidden territory for me
While open hunting grounds for others?

14. You must have heard that I excel
All men in rewarding poetry

15. That is the best of assumptions
When one brother suspects another

16. If anyone else blamed me, I would say
He veiled his sight with fog toward my sun

17. And his own filth covered his heart
So he cannot see the right as right

18. Or I would say he was a man
Who saw generosity as a major sin, and repented

19. Uttering by the fountain, then saying
“I repent to God for those who repent”

20. Or I would say, “No! He has always
Been an ally of stinginess and a lying foe!

21. Spewing praise without gaining any,
Promising wishes that vanish like mirages.”

22. So do hearts incline to that
Whether a guess misses or hits?

23. But I pick and choose among surmises about you
As I gather the choicest petals for your praise

24. He who thinks the best of you
You truly deserve, not pretense

25. Yet I am a man who complains
And my complaint guides the best rebuke

26. I will reveal guarded reproaches
That if unsaid, will return as mist

27. You accept my praises and recite them
To others while withholding rewards from me

28. Though they contain intimate secrets
I confided in you behind veils

29. So by God! What you have done
Is wondrous strange toward me!

30. You tear away the veil upon my solitude
And shut the door against your gifts!

31. If you either reward a man
Or cover over his loss – that is understandable

32. But you remove his veil
And refuse to grant him favors

33. Except your uncle signals me
With twinkling lights that dazzle my eyes

34. Beckoning while avoiding me,
Though my side, if he frequented, would be more fertile, more hallowed soil...

35. A side, when a guide desires to visit it
Finds musk where camphor would usually be

36. And if the noble partake of it, it yields fresher, sweeter harvest
Of gratitude than cane sugar would yield

37. While your uncle snatches away
The sight from my eyes but gives the gifts to others!

38. You were content when promising me
I would attain when spying clouds on your horizon

39. But I was not selling concealment of being self-satisfied
For you to cheat me with a charming promise

40. He who sells his cover for mere hope
Will be disappointed when times change

41. How strange that you almost took advantage of me
To turn my temples white before their prime!

42. Your perpetual denial to my guide
Though without me, no one enjoys your denial

43. Before allowing him to convey
My gifts, he had less access than your lowliest companion

44. So what he hoped through you
Was denied – closeness to you or favor

45. What skill you have to scheme against me
And to skillfully leave the raven unwhitened!

46. You vowed unless you satisfied me
The rhymes would turn away wrathfully

47. So I do not see you as generous
Praise belongs to others, not to the rewarded one