1. I purposefully cease visiting you
And turn away from you and your abode

2. Until I am rid of this youthful folly
Alone, even if I am smitten with love

3. So it was as if this infatuation
Was a treasure that enriched me, now lost

4. I did not find myself worthy of it
In fortune, either deficient or excessive

5. And I wondered that the finite is deprived
Though obliged, while the infinite profits at leisure

6. The inequality of fates amongst them
Does not alternate, rising and falling

7. What ails the one deprived of will, resigned
Unlike the one deprived yet still striving

8. And tribes who care for you though their affairs
Neither allies to assist nor foes to fight

9. I secretly visited them, then left
Going to them yet returning detached

10. I told the one hoping for nobleness, erring
When he courted constancy, to desist

11. Do not follow one misdeed with another
The worst misdeed is to persist and repeat

12. But raise your hands to magnanimity, preferring
For the eminent of a people are the open-handed

13. I praise Abu Al-Saqr whose grey hairs
In good deeds have reached the furthest extent

14. And I am glad no virtue is esteemed
Among a people who do not honor their elders

15. The virtuous women match the virtues
And manners of virtuous men, conforming

16. And when you ask about a man’s character
Evidences and proofs will verify the facts

17. You held power over a nation
Near destruction, if only you could reform

18. It despaired of fairness until it imagined
In despair that God had neglected it in vain

19. They travel from Baghdad, behind its domes
Exploring its ruins and demolished temples

20. Were it not for their proliferation in its meadows
They would be illuminated or built into mosques

21. I followed your rhymes willingly
Thankful for your immense gifts, never deficient

22. How could I lag when you in your glory
Are matchless, and I do not deny this

23. Your leadership today provides bountifully
What yesterday sat aspiring but unsuccessful

24. You summoned clouds whose lightning
Flashed in a storm, two foundations firm

25. And whenever you thank Him for what you attained
The sources flow with all I seek and desire

26. It invigorates resolves that if intent
Would mold the two continents, inert and frozen

27. Strong shoulders do not know which hands
Bore them no burden, which arms helped hoist the load

28. You provoked the steeds of Isfahan, so do not ask
Its people’s view, when the army was arrayed

29. As if the trumpeters were with Pharaoh of Egypt
When he strayed and did not guide others

30. You sent the infantry then reinforced them
With the cavaliers, collaborating and assisting

31. Thus fear of mishaps fore and aft
And ruinous consequences of war made them recoil

32. Your strategy mostly defeats a superior enemy
Thwarting his conspiracies, attacking and deceiving

33. Men’s statuses diminished until you see
No one vie with you in ambition or envy

34. If they competed they would conceal from you
Any dew of freshness, so corrupt the times

35. They sat though lofty ideals once drove them
To build, no more, upon foundations now collapsed

36. You lacked no faction whose desire was to guard you
And natures that singled out your person as unique

37. Most wondrous to me is the imperative
That compels the led to obey the leader

38. Thousands refuse, though thousands
Follow and a single one leads the thousands

39. You surpassed kings in grandeur and halls
That dazzle the visitor and impress guests

40. You sought what they never asked for themselves
Palms raised to grasp the heavens and be assisted

41. You stayed up through a night of beauties, were it not for God
Refinement of their essence would be shameful and disgraceful

42. They quench the anger you have towards a people
Given cool nectar while you get bitter blame

43. If they characterize you and a miser similarly
You are the misguided, the miser is rightly-guided

44. And I knew your ambition ever rises
To fulfill a higher purpose, ascending

45. With victory, fate is obeyed as begun
And wealth pursues the course already trodden

46. Glory that does not cease, with time
Entrusting glory to the most glorious of the age

47. These are your supererogatory deeds
Whose mysteries return to you as poetry

48. Their fame gives you rising stars
And their beings, mountains enduring forever

49. Wilfull lines whose narrations
Refuse to travel straight, missing their aim

50. These rhymes do not settle for one praised
Until they embarrass wandering words

51. Excuses for declining gifts, whenever
A king freely bestows on one already wealthy

52. And the sea, if ships did not sail it
With wind, would remain stagnant in stillness