1. A familiar torment of days gone by,
Their distance in comradeship after nearness,

2. And never are depths filled with outpour of tears—
No end to love's beginnings of its flow.

3. A soul led astray views its passion
In raptures—a trouble from its suffering,

4. Your share of Layla though you've none with her
Save her rejection, aloofness, shunning you.

5. My poem's sequence differs from hers in time—
My youth ends as her youth's time begins.

6. Through you, may we draw nearer after
Growing apart from the means, and through her.

7. She is the sun though to the beholder
A sun screened in raiment that covers all.

8. When will you glean extra life, drawing
Deep from annals of love and its toil?

9. The world flays us with its lowest effort
And snakes' deceit—an affliction, their slaver.

10. One led astray revels in the land’s ruins
Though in ruins it’s built up again.

11. I never approved the world at its coming,
So how to approve it the time it goes?

12. I say to one who lies about fate and strays
From wise views culling some and discarding others,

13. Fate will return or end you, you profess
Devotion though misery will distance its place.

14. Are you in a shrouded grave whose handful
Of dust was taken from earth—only that?

15. It points to Egypt, events are guided
To Egypt when its essence is searched.

16. You're not in it Waleed ibn Mus'ab's time
When smoothing the rough was his concern,

17. Nor Sinan ibn Mushallil's, when he built
Its pyramids from the rocks of its hills.

18. Kings succeeded who inherited its glory
And shared its pedigree and noble birth,

19. Protected its grandeur from going to waste
And safeguarded past nobles' prestige,

20. Did helping hands of immortals have a share
With things gone in imagination's mist?

21. Gifts slip down from lofty outstretched hands,
Like torrents slip down from mountain peaks.

22. When the gray year insisted, they exchanged
Swords in fights—their warriors had their fill.

23. They stretched shadows' breath out over them
With lofty buildings topping their domes.

24. How much distress they relieved, when gloom
Spread over sights from mist and fog.

25. With a fortress beneath clouds, shining,
Grabbing enemies swooping like eagles.

26. And brave warriors with their mail yellowed,
Blows of death and whiteness of swords.

27. Najran equipped them in every peril
As Khattan equipped Awsad's jungles.

28. I see infidelity and prosperity acted out
For us enslaved men, necks in fetters.

29. How many a hopeful bitterly bites his hand
Contrary to hopes and their reversal!

30. So either you're content with falsehoods—turn
To roam its plains, scattered and squabbling,

31. Or if God grants supremacy and power
Griefs pour out tears or are consoled for loss.

32. When limping she camels point to the path of Suwad
Make your endeavors walk its proper gait,

33. Be gentle, give us command—may your hands profit
In days of glory and power in turn.

34. Hardships among us remain and being
Most strange to one alive—the most estranging.

35. We found the exalted as exalted, his success
In seizing booty and grasping its forelock.

36. His generosity rivals the sea, and the sea itself,
If it attempted an instant of his giving, would fall short.

37. The leader of high goals—no baseness attached to seekers of him
Nor baseness in those who seek them.

38. Transgression kept away from him, and the tribe's say
Prevented it against the outsider, fearing its answers.

39. When aspirants hoped to catch up with him
Steps slowed or missed the target altogether.

40. When his clan saw him rising over them
His illumination made their darkness shine with stars.

41. And if roused in ordeals sent by fate
They drew out their swords from his proximity.

42. When his virtues kept company they covered
Shortcomings—and virtues in company are better.

43. No niggardliness barred kindness except when
Straitened by fate—only you opened its door.

44. Abu Saleh, you remain heir to a prosperous
Life, while enemies lament what they face from you.