1. You are closer than your words, O Amr
A condition that reveals affliction

2. So do not spend the night in darkness
Your patience and chest are strained by it

3. And make patience an armor for it
For patience is the mark of the wise

4. It is glory, a necklace, if you assess it
Cheaply attained and the price is life

5. Indeed, a man who died with glory
Is immortalized when recalled

6. No good in wealth not appreciated
For wealth itself is appreciation

7. Stones of evil were made devices
Whose mystery is benefit or harm

8. Who expends them earns reward
And who hoards them earns sins

9. Far be it from me to be seen competing
When my army of resolve is few

10. Rather, I make excuses mingling with them
For with their circles I have excuse

11. If others are distinguished by a ray of dew
Excelling them, it is from an unknown source

12. What value do night stars have
If the full moon is not known

13. O wonder at my determination and journeying
To God belongs the secret in His decree

14. Iraq cries blood from my absence
And I have no news to give to console you

15. Hopes have not ceased to be misleading
Tormenting the wise and the fool

16. Every distant fantastical tale
Belied when the news was checked

17. Grievances swell if they come from nobles
And small ones if they come from the lowly

18. Love for Dubais is estrangement in passion
Competing with it, the pearl is dimmed

19. My passion exceeded my excuses and longing for it
So bitterness because of it became sweet for me

20. One whose worries hopes do not cheer
Not gladdened by wine

21. I am more dignified in her view
Than a fool whose way is abandonment

22. The best of crowns are of palm fronds
My people, when glory is recalled

23. Standards flutter for us when danger
Calls for our help against calamity

24. Seek the rights of glory and gain it
Under a king whose adornment is poetry

25. So perhaps a complainer may complain
Of our fortune or the caprice of fate

26. No bounty remains nor grievance
Neither wealth persists nor poverty