1. I say to a heart its passion inflamed, desire has maddened it
In a sandy desert where its affliction intensified

2. Since an early morning when the spearheads of resolve turned away
And I stayed behind, fearing the stages of its dangerous paths

3. Khorasan narrowed for me because of the passion of love
As if the booty of the wilderness entangled its ropes

4. Help me to act with patience though I
Saw the beauty of patience praised by its doer

5. So when it insisted on passion and intoxication
I obeyed your love and busied myself with its concerns

6. And I shed a tear, if its downpour were to hit
The abode one day, it would grow green grass

7. You ordered me to conceal my love in my heart
How then with a body that discloses anguish on its face?

8. You commanded my will to abandon desire
How can a man determine when his heart has failed him?

9. I clung to you while the life of youth was still fresh
And my youth was torn, right defeated by wrong

10. How can I be consoled after companionship and forty years
That refused me loyalty, no guile in it

11. I am the son of one who roused the thirsty to rise
With every brave one whose death outruns its appointed time

12. And their watering place is my copious pool and breath
With the dawn until its camels came to it

13. And the tail cover of the grazing herd is lifted from the early arrivals
And the gray-haired old man detected its smell

14. I was raised by kings from Tamim son of Khindif
Nobles, when the rain held back its downpour

15. Lofty fortresses as if their palms
Were a winter cloud from which its fringes disappeared

16. If they were enraged on the day of battle, you would think them
Plateaus of evil, permanent through successive ages

17. And if they unsheathed their swords for war
Destroyers of evil contact their sharp blades

18. To them belongs every bay-colored one on a snorting camel
Whose teeth are bared by the wayfarer and one seeking justice

19. Their clothing in peace is a coarse burdah
And in war a doubly wrapped garment

20. Their horses’ reins around their homes
Were a decorated army that cast off its bonds

21. You see the guardian women terrified by their might
As if the neighing of mares were their cooking pots

22. They raised me, and I have blood vengeance which I hope
To attain with spear thrusts that spill blood

23. I asked for loftiness, lest I walk on pebbles
Until its springs are transformed into meadows

24. With every youth whose honor is preserved by his restraint
He dies thereby before reaching his dwellings

25. And I storm the living quarters with a massive army
Whose spears rain between the houses

26. The humiliated seek my pardon through it
And the protected widows and their children

27. Darkened around him is a night of heavy rain
So the horizons and stars are its containers

28. The cowardly raven fled after perching
So no bird remains except predators and their food

29. At dusk their eggs redden from the swords’ blaze
And their fingers yellow from the firebrands’ flames

30. So I will lie slain or my power manifests itself
With victory in the matter I hope for

31. I disobeyed youth until its glory was restored
And how can a man oppose old age that afflicts him?

32. I distanced myself from the adornments of appearance
That seduced my chastity and I seduced it

33. So farewell to the love songs and their singers
And devotion has a rapture that its calamities cannot be resisted

34. As if the radiance of my face and the heat of my resolve
Were the honor of noble religion and its attainment

35. They are ambitions that fear the violence of death
And the downpour of clouds envy it

36. The brightness of his face rivals the dawn
A gentle drizzle when it flows over it and its channels

37. At sunset the whiteness of eggs meets him as he comes
His resolves unleashed and his undertakings

38. Swift to visit, the heap of embers does not praise its guest
But he may praise the boughs and one who reaches them

39. When the Pleiades rise in the evening
The spirits of youth circle and transmit them

40. From Faiha its breeze flows
Gentle in its borders, its branches refine it

41. From the perfume of Sanaa is made available to him wherever
They halted, so its pouches emit musk

42. The civet greets him and the sand ridges heap up
Like its dunes and little hills

43. The breadth of the king’s back has the sweetest scent
And is most fragrant when excellent words are spoken

44. He is the downpour, the coursing rain that enriches you if
The rain contends with the dwellings of the living, questioning them

45. His enemies confront him with the corner of a noble
That extends the pleasure of his forbearance and weighs him down

46. His qualities flow gently when insulted
And painstakingly generous in affection are his traits

47. Eloquent, excelling in speech, fluent
On the day of debate, even his opponent concedes to him

48. His judgment illuminates the mother of problems
So his legal opinions are approved and his questions

49. The tranquility of forbearance carpets the living quarters with its coolness
And the verse of power that its resolute ones fear

50. When the shameless word cried out to his hearing
A generous one concealed it, trailing his garment

51. His generosity ties firmly with glory
So his hospitality is overflowing and his virtues

52. And I bid farewell to a faithful friend, his companionship
Feared in its separation but hoped for in its constancy

53. He lines up the registers of scores in calmness
As he lined up for battle the king, inspiring awe

54. Through him I uncovered a care on a woeful day
When the sword blades were let loose and clashed

55. Abu Hassan, a magnificent feat of merit
Came to you powerfully convincing though young

56. At a time of injustice by an era of decay
Like clouds of drizzle on the day of vying

57. So be where glory thought of you, for only
Its clouds' downpour tells of its passages