1. Were the collar of 'Ees to find my ecstasy
It would bind the hands of those embracing from embracing

2. So it would know that grief is not like love
And what leads to annihilation is made pleasing to it

3. The wind of youth and pleasure called it to passion
Yet far from it are the places of youth and pleasure

4. Flitting about, a heart that longs for nearness and intent
Borne by yearning to tyranny and purpose

5. Were it not for love it would not accept dry wood as fuel
Nor abandon the soft sand for the hard

6. How you persist in reciting poetry tearfully
A heart in al-Najd, oh how tender your heart is!

7. Though the arrows of your thoughts pierce me
And the archer of my passion is far away

8. Enduring love that does not end
And excessive sickness that does not settle

9. I have no intimacy but with passion and a loved one
Who leads astray, though it is the loved one’s right to guide

10. A time when ignorance mixed with prohibition
And a love I count as more astray than righteousness

11. We sing but we have gained nothing but love
We built but prepared no provision but ecstasy

12. My passions will fatigue every rider
My weaknesses will topple the strength of any hero

13. When she glances, she captivates proud hearts
If she appears, she shakes slender waists

14. Raiders of destruction who never gained power
Seekers of vengeance who never harbored hatred

15. Of the inadvertent killers asking for forgiveness
And the deliberate murderers out of animosity

16. So they bid farewell, nay deposited in my heart misery
And left behind in me the agony of loneliness

17. My friend, how sweet is life were it not
That its taster never mingles honey with aloes

18. Days have strayed from the state of old
Who do I have with days lasting as they once did?

19. They stripped me of my youth and wealth
And depleted my share of separation and estrangement

20. They bent until they left me with naught
Upon the bone neither flesh, nor skin nor cover

21. I am not troubled that I was unprepared
For its afflictions, except by few who prepare

22. I must call to fend off its tribulations
A generous one, and if he is Ibn Sa'd, then my bliss!

23. There is no path to perfection of religion in the land
For a free man whose tribulations try him, nor a slave

24. My adherence to the minister and his shade
Is a hand for bounty, none like it I possess

25. What more can I seek after his generosity?
The rain suffices one it pours upon and one providing it

26. To accustomed hospitality and repeated generosity
To a barren plateau lofty over mankind

27. And a reaped garden plentiful beyond count
To the One God whom I gift praise alone

28. For truth, none guide me to bounty but my own effort
The least of his gifts is ascendance to the lofty

29. And the lowest of his traits exclusivity to glory
Vanquisher of enemies by might yet no transgressor

30. Life-giver of mankind by grace yet no aggressor
Most inviolable sanctuary for one under his patronage

31. Truest wealth for one spending the night under his promise
A young man whose concern is for righteousness and piety

32. Whose gain is for reward and praise
Of the sincere critics binding together against rancor

33. Their refuge, and greeters of sound criticism
Their neighbor at times of fear, a stronghold for a neighbor

34. Their delegation filling the abode, a returning delegation
When the rain declines, their generosity brings about

35. Downpours of rain that neither fail nor diminish
And if the season of blossoms ends, with them are

36. Gifts erasing the season of blossoms
For the eternal-crowned, all those remembered

37. For their loss, praise for eternity in exchange
A pure glory protecting them from shortchanging

38. A father who attained glory, or ancestor
Most noble when he gives - benefits; when he extends -

39. Obliterates; when he shows kindness - restores that which brings destruction
With lofty minarets, as though extending

40. From sublime towers over calm waters
Showing you the stars in its veil swaggering through him

41. And the Pleiades gesture proudly through its cloak
And virtues are attributed to him though it is not

42. For the planets to deny the fortunate moon
Worthy for his gracious opinion to reveal to him

43. In secret that which exhausts men despite effort
And to facilitate the matter which distressed

44. The ways of the misguided and beasts of India
You removed the irritation from the eye of religion after

45. It came to you with the vision of a sun in sleepy eyes
You were reform for the times, so you never ceased

46. To straighten every bent devious one
So you did not spare a pasture whose shepherd

47. Complained of an inviolable sanctuary lacking a fence
Nor a gap whose protector complained of lacking a barricade

48. A grasping one of religion whom you supported
As its champion the day you resolved to rebuff

49. It is no surprise from you to curb
A defiant one whose molars fate made blunt

50. In what discourse were you not piercing to the core?
In what merit were you not penetrating as a spearhead?

51. As if you are compelled to virtue alone
So what stops you from attaining virtue from the start?

52. To you we brought every beautiful one, if
She returned from you, surely not one bruised of cheek

53. Of the lofty, elevated in position, ones
Matching my precedence and excelling my successors

54. You assume residents, but they are travelers
Camping, traversing, seeking refuge, searching

55. A quencher - and the pouring rain is no deluge
Provisions - and the pocket of night no lack

56. They die from hopes in you as though they are
Necks of hunters wrestling over quarry

57. You remain clothed in praise, though not the sword
That boasts of the scabbard

58. If a necklace adorns the beauty in her neck
More beautiful than adornment is the placing of the necklace

59. I came to you for the lofty, so if you are bestowing
Then by compelling honor, not comfortable life

60. If an attainer does not make me boastful of his attainment
Then cessation of gifts is a form of giving