1. When youth's caller summoned him, he answered,
And desire struck his heart, hitting the mark.

2. You blame what came to him, though many an ignorant man
Came to what is blameless, and then blamed it.

3. Would that I knew, tomorrow when he ascends to Saud,
What thing from bliss has delighted him!

4. Is it seriousness of steely resolve,
Or jesting in love and play?

5. The treachery of an eye I never thought of,
Nor a heart whose fickleness one day I never feared.

6. He lives in fear of my avoidance,
While I feared avoiding him.

7. Clasping in pardon a secret sin, though he
Kissed farewell in the hour of parting.

8. A lightning glance, if he should repeat it,
Would ignite my heart, kindling or melting it.

9. Separation left between us only
A visiting of him or visit from him.

10. Few good brothers remain but sympathizers
Or ones returning from revelry.

11. If you ask about lost youth,
It is the rains whose return I await.

12. The prime of a life whose clouds have lifted from me,
And from she in the clouds of her litters.

13. The attacker profits by brevity in the matter,
While the procrastinator wearies from caution.

14. And a friend I called to great deeds,
While he is below the Pleiades frequenting his door.

15. He was careless of my invitation, and whoever is hard of hearing,
In the meadows of their likes, evil is his answer.

16. Wondrous from him that day, and from me,
That he searches out mockery to express wonder.

17. Fear not for my household, nor those poems,
For property whose loss I never feared.

18. How many honored were warred on without disgrace,
With their wealth seized or stripped of their clothes!

19. We praised the hall of Chosroes and we came
To grow old getting scraps from Ibn Shawābah.

20. A house of pride - if wealth had fulfilled
Its owner, its visitors would have lords.

21. And when a people alloy the truth,
It behooves kinship to take the place of kinship.

22. You are of them, apart from what you have put on
After them, of the plumage of the man of script and letters.

23. Aspirations in the heavens which rise high,
And wide horizons stretched out.

24. And people - if glory leaves some,
They preserve glory lest they leave those who seek it.

25. They never sought but to follow their fathers.
Each of us seeking his share.

26. They were brought together by a noble nature they never
Exceeded, gathering the brave lions.

27. A manner among them circulated among them,
Would that kinship were a committed band.

28. As the keen sword remains through the ages
And perishes in every age a kinship.

29. The dangers of a horseman were never equaled but
They ruled branch and tree.

30. And when Ahmad commenced for a river,
He increased the river, bestowing, enhancing it.

31. I hope for superabundance of bounty from him
Such as the rain-clouds never hoped for from desert-dwellers.

32. He is fixed in the highlands of glory, content
That its margins incline toward dew and rain-clouds.

33. He who never knew thirst or how to pasture
Will not be sated by those clouds.

34. If he runs seeking the limit of glory,
He will win the race, outstripping his companions.

35. And one who rivals him, excelling, until
He makes the sea overflow with its rain torrents.

36. I said, take on the worst of what you suffer, and
To fear a supporter may save you from it.

37. And it is a flaw to build up superior merit
You have access to while he profits by its cream.

38. If you wish to convey his verse, do not be followed
By my evils, nor obeyed by his youth.

39. He cared for the bonds of affairs, excelling
In pleasing disposition and subtlety.

40. And a gentle dignity from him brings him down
To intimacy, from awe and dread.

41. Smooth in bestowal, as if we
Sought pebbles, not bounty, from him.

42. For hopeful pilgrims, he is the pillar of hopes,
As the house is for pilgrims a reward.