1. I see no trail in the rugged land that leads
The verses have settled, as well as north and south winds

2. A hesitant questioner of homesteads, blameworthy
In questioning homesteads or blaming

3. By the beloved's life, nearing him
If you could, would be so sweet

4. She came visiting whence she had camped
In a land where I had become a stranger

5. Yearning is exile, longing has settled
A petitioner veiled in his litters

6. I stay up nights perfecting my pact
With the specter of imagination—yet it is a delusion

7. I see us united, with a canopy pitched over us
Whereupon we confer—but it is struck

8. And the brother who distracted me, I turned away from him
Which of your brethren cannot be doubted?

9. I saw the friend slyly multiple his affection
As the beloved busied himself with purity

10. May God guard Ja’far wherever he is endangered
By an intimate’s slight or usurpation

11. Little do I care if I hold to a rope
From Him if all the calamities befell me

12. A comforter who congratulates his attainder
When the high star clusters set

13. In a spot of Persia where no fool suffers
Nor does the stranger feel

14. A date palm from whose branches glory branched out
And in its shade the dynasties conferred

15. Nobles, who were never born commoners
Unless born to a noble father

16. Whose nobility made their own kinsmen seem lacking
A generosity that dazzles the stars and most gracious

17. A glory that still launches from them
A shriek to the heights guiding

18. Wherever you find them, a refuge lies there
Capacious with a courtyard surrounding

19. And if you are absent from them, composure departs
And their glowing embers grow cold

20. By my father, do not ask me about a state
In the innermost guts of it, hidden or apparent

21. I am in Syria though my homeland
After parting from Iraq I am a stranger there

22. Innuendos from a friend disquiet
My composure as old age would

23. And strained affection and my days
Demanding in arms or sought out

24. I do not visit Syria without a watchdog
For me among the thorns or upon me a watchdog

25. The coat of mail rings against my rectitude
And my restfulness, whose sound ricochets

26. Where wit is not chosen from the people for company
Nor is the literary man desired

27. News reached us of you and of him whose abode
There where parched when you arrived

28. You arrived, with rain clouds feeding it
So you saw the rain clouds, how they poured down

29. You sneaked about in the night’s hiddenness
While the night blazed, murky

30. Of the injustice of meeting you but my deprivation
While you are near and I am far

31. And the willfulness of fate descending my land
While I am present and become absent

32. With a longing for you kindling in my heart
Firebrands with the smoke of its flames

33. And wishes to see you and that
You might visit my splendid land

34. So I could have in you a share
Of intimacy by which I might live and a lot

35. It is a pact of nights, praiseworthy
If it befalls and fated, bestowed

36. Oh son of Abdul Ghaffar, you traveled a course
To which hearts are inclined

37. If one afar comes near or one absent returns
Or answers one who pleads

38. Or success runs its course in that which you undertook
It is my expectation of you, that will not fail