1. Is providence anything but seeing a man
Whose only purpose is the Creator?

2. The servant aspires to his Master
Is there for the servant any deity but the Lord?

3. A slave of worldly affairs is shackled
Though free of attachments yet constrained

4. While God's servant in His compassion
Is shaded by the wing of Honor outstretched

5. Revealing witnessing to his folk, suns of guidance
Yes, and witnessing the sun of love, witnessed

6. Light pours into his heart supporting him
So it clears for him while he is blessed all time

7. But he who worldly blindness veils the light of his witnessing
In darkness is his heart enveloped and bound

8. So emulate these people, O you, by their ways
For how oft did emulation lead to realization?

9. Among the folk are honoured folk unrelenting
Remembrance for them has no limited time

10. By it they exhausted their efforts, died enthralled by it
Naught else but that effort had they expended

11. If they saw a glimmer from the rising place of its dawn
Unreined they galloped towards it

12. From every lover, humble and enraptured
Songs and warbling fill his nights

13. Passion for Him ignited him, yearning unsettled him
To the Beloved, and the army of illusion banished

14. It turns back the fancy of hopes from its horizons
Except through its Master, excellent is the effort blessed

15. A moan issues from his heart driving him
From existence, and from it the heart is lost

16. Conversing with love, seeking no substitute
In it the two marvels, lost and found

17. For him the nights blanched from his burning
Favor a servant whose nights have whitened

18. O Arabs of Wadi Nakta, long has separation burdened us
You have been absent, be compassionate, return

19. By generosity you enlived the world and its homes
So by meeting us for an instant be generous

20. Order was too constricting for us in praising you
Of it odes composed and sought after are with people

21. My composition is a lament and longings for your appearing
Pourings forth in which are wailing and enumeration

22. Your loving slaves, from them hearts are on
Your thresholds, from them the mantles are received

23. My iron heart melted by the gentleness of passion for you
Will the Prophet David mend it?

24. I borrowed lightning from the castles of your kingdom
As though in it a rebuke and threat

25. My critics envied me when I was aflame for you
While every gracious one among people is envied

26. They saw in me traits of loving you
Upon the core of longing a necklace

27. So they plotted against me, O how despicable
Your standard above lovers is hoisted

28. My soul tempts me through you in its fervor
It slopes toward my weakness and ascends

29. Return to it a breath to live by for you
Is that not, my masters - and God - being frozen?

30. A subtle mystery which melted this body
So gently, my lords, from it defend a secret

31. Your lover's place is always humility to you
O you whose place in the unseen is praised