1. The greatest sorrows best become the great;
A fool says, "Bear them not with patience!"

2. You cried that constant mourning was but meet,
And blame a calm endurance in the meek.

3. Yet such is the true lover's heart, for he
Finds grief in severance easy to defeat.

4. He who wins love should bear himself discreet,
Not in wild joy his secret soul betray.

5. Would that the days when first we met could know
Renewal! - but no friend lasts for aye.

6. Full oft these eyes have rained blood for your sake,
As my heart flamed and my face grew pale.

7. For you the house has hid love's agony
And buried deep for you the tales I could tell.

8. As though its walls were but a stream bed dried
Where flood water rushed and left no trace as well.

9. Ask my heart if it has been bent by sickness,
Or if my body's pain has made it frail.

10. Before the spy my tears break forth in flood
When I am lonely and may freely wail.

11. Misfortunes to your door came thick and fast,
Forewritten destinies you could not veil,

12. And would that I might find my heart's desire
And pour them from the hollow of my hand like hail,

13. From thunderclouds that break to spread their load
When the hot summer promised drought and fail.

14. Greatly I trust in al-Faḍl ibn Sahl's grace;
Noble he stays if kin by blood assail.

15. A king whom men of proud descent disdain
As base-born miscreants the throne to veil.

16. Whose mighty forbears, when they gained their power,
Crushed the proud tribes and ground them like grain.

17. Who left the land of flowers and abandoned it
For a bald desert fit but to entail

18. The wormwood's growth and bitter colocynth.
They were bold lions save when heroes prevailed,

19. And public wealth they seized with greedy hands.
The son who reunited what they split

20. And made one jewel of scattered fragments -
He received men's hearts, of hatred rid.

21. He drove Ibn 'Amr to the frontier's limit
And struck the bane of Tamim a mortal hit.

22. Far swept his squadrons, but in their retreat
By mightier forces they were scattered and split.

23. He promised the House of al-Hasan ibn Sahl
Valiant Persians, noble, generously bred.

24. Do not remind this scion of noble race
Of benefits, as though his birth you led.

25. Virtues he shows, and talents every one,
Transcending all, of generous stock indeed.

26. While from the rest divided gifts are thrown,
Only in him all excellences succeed.

27. The lion in his wilds wins but a part:
He browses on men's souls, are savage-led.

28. You matched his prowess, and excelled his fame
For liberality, while he kills and shreds.

29. You scorn to vilify on an evil day,
But nobly you forgive if one misled

30. Should speak in insult. While if he attains
Advantage, he shows a mean and envious head.

31. I saw the day your gifts spread joy around,
Movement and happiness filled all, and sped

32. The winds that stir men's souls. And the day of rain -
How bright the lightning flashed, the thunder dread!

33. It flooded here, but missed a stretch of plain,
While your rain clouds are free to all men spread.

34. Why do fools attack you here and there?
In what do the false likeners liken, said?

35. I praised you trusting one whom you befriended
Heedlessly, and he rendered benefits instead.

36. I thank you for your far-famed gifts, but lo,
If they showed plain, as stars they would be read.

37. And promises - if visible they were,
Before men's eyes like clouds they would be spread.

38. I have encountered envy fearlessly,
As though before I never had misled

39. A foe. Your gifts streamed forth in constant flow,
While yours to the unworthy much you shed.