1. He saw the lightning flashing by, so he spent the night sleepless,
And the thought of the miserly one filled him with sorrow.

2. He lingered in her ruins, unconsoled,
Neither shedding a tear, nor heeding the caravan's rebuke.

3. When I recognized her abode,
I deserved that my friends reproach me,

4. Our frequent journeys away from her increased
The burden of leave-taking upon the threshold.

5. I committed no crime that you should punish me for it,
Nor did I sin, that you should blame me.

6. I suffer from thirst that only the water of her mouth could quench
At the pool of her slender waist’s sweet draft.

7. You have provisioned yourself with a glance that did not sate you,
Yet the forbidden temptation may be seized by force.

8. It was not my intention, but I saw the eye as a gateway to the heart.
I implore you not to complain of a youth’s passion,

9. Even if your kindness towards my passion gives me life.
It saddens me that you recognize love through coquetry,

10. Even if your knowing love benefits me.
I refuse to humble myself before my brethren

11. Except with a humility that gentles my compassion for them.
When my friends find fault with me, I keep them close,

12. And I overlook their reprehensible traits.
Who will inform the miser that I have given up hope

13. Of boarding his unassailable ship?
The son of a dinar has turned my aspirations

14. To loose morals and plunder.
I hoped only for generosity from him,

15. And claimed no merit but his bounty.
I encountered the limits of time in him, so I rejected him,

16. For rancor may fester even in the tolerant.
A noble one, when the vile crowd in,

17. Finds the spacious heavens too cramped for his expansive heart.
When the rabble weigh down the saddle of his steed,

18. His glance begins to dart with the quick-drawn sword.
The eastern folk warned each other about his feats of valor,

19. And even the rebels in western lands obeyed.
He unsheathed the blade of his sword until the bloodied crowds

20. Fled from the sword of my fearless father.
If the cave-dwellers ever think again

21. Of returning to their oppression, ruin is near.
I swear the enemies submitted and the blades

22. Of Rome’s mighty were sheathed, faced with dire straits.
I will compel them to take the right path, dreading

23. Those calamities and the possibility of their doom.
A director of wars who never wavers when war flares up,

24. And never feels fear stir in his heart.
He is restless with yearning for the battle,

25. Until he finds peace in the fury of striking.
Through him, the world shone light for us after darkness,

26. And the days yielded to us from unripe habits.
Abdullah continues to be clothed in fine qualities,

27. That stand in for light in the verdant meadows.
A youth made lofty through humility, struggling

28. And astonished at ostentatious, proud men.
He has ancestors from the house of Firuz who subdued

29. The non-Arabs, and the throngs of Arabs submitted to them.
The guardians of the royal throne, who with it

30. Erected their highest seats, titans of war.
They thrust down from their towers with spears

31. And they met them standing firmly in the saddles.
For them the palace of the ivory throne was built in Hormuz’s time,

32. And the stamp of the Khosrawanian dynasty was fortified.
The Sassanians challenged them in vain,

33. Like the circuit of the stars around the celestial pole.
They advanced with white banners, whiter than serpents’ bellies

34. And more loyal than mountain pacts.