1. To what secrets of passion have I not been true?
What love has been there I did not go through?

2. I have lapses that make me grieve,
Exposing me when away from him to one unlike me.

3. As though the lovely eyes conspired
Against me among eyes that pierce.

4. When I ask the thousands of youth about the past,
After I had sung, the meadows of youth not matching it.

5. I see the confidence of the hopeful, conversing
With doubt, each strengthening and encouraging the other.

6. As though destiny belies him, the promise of one who warns,
Fulfilled or the treachery of a confidante.

7. When we meet them and old age intercedes,
They are playful or they address us intimately.

8. If they ignore us, how many gentle souls,
Hunt those cheeks, so artful in hunting!

9. Would that the desires of a lover were echoed
In his innermost being, or with one who duplicates!

10. The longing of the enamored is but anguish to him
If he is not allowed the interpretation of one who comprehends.

11. I began with the right of friends and did not
Make it a duty like the right of acquaintances.

12. I equalized the people in thanking those who preceded them,
Though they range from market inspectors to successors.

13. I count obliging a friend exceeding bounty
Though bounty itself is a form of sharing.

14. How many have I censured or scorned behind their backs
For their disgraceful acts and wicked ways!

15. They perceive in the moments of gifts; they never sensed
In the moments of death the circling fates.

16. When the youths disappear from you and their measures
Become confused, know them by the refined ways.

17. I decided for Isaac ibn Yaʿqub fairly,
A case where there is neither too much nor too little.

18. A father whose hands overflow with elevation
And in them his finesse in difficult situations is clear.

19. He reaches the furthest goals of glory which
Left behind the goals of raging winds.

20. When people are told: “Estimate it as you think,”
They refrain from renewing those disputes.

21. It leads to the greatest span, preceded by one
Who perceives from it the nearing of its edges.

22. To fully please him, his envier might burst
With vexation in the grip of a rueful tyrant.

23. Beneficence does not diminish glory by its generosities;
Rather it increases it with its diverse virtues.

24. Where on the desolate plateau can its branches attain
Tranquility, in the barren valleys full of pebbles?

25. I gathered in it hopes and did not hope
For dispersal in scattered groups and bands.

26. I made a pact between my poetry and his existence,
That if it does not match his wealth, it has its own virtues.

27. Refined poetry whose threading is exquisite comes to us
In a unique threading from the looms of Sūs, place of fine textiles.

28. We sell cheap merchandise for expensive
And buy thin fabrics with thick and coarse ones.

29. If there were in the land of servants, throngs
Of fine discriminators and clever girls,

30. The work of a hand in generosity wherever directed
Would see in its duplications a wondrous skill.