1. If you wish not to shed tears
Do not weep, for tears should not flow causelessly

2. Save some of your tears, for in tears there is
One who is used to passion whom it does not relieve

3. Tears are a precious outpouring though through them
Those who spy may detect the lover's hidden grief

4. So I said do not embarrass the tears of passion - hide them
Either it is evident that love's bond is severed

5. My tears gained no consent to flow for mere deserted abodes
In whose remnants the tokens of dwellers lie forlorn

6. Wounding like the slashes of a Firanid sword or the slashes of a hand
In which the branding iron made the exiled wail at its burn

7. You will not find there a pasture, should you stand in it
Save ashes like collyrium for the eye or red embers

8. By God, a time of the likes of Dhi al-Ithl is no more
With it I would have watered a raging, furious enemy

9. Umaama says, verily I have become
Severe, and affection's cords within me burn

10. I am not pleased to be found betraying
One who is not my shaikh or whose word I heed

11. So I deemed being joined to you a lessening
And said, “Why, what for?” I said, “Gently!”

12. Verily, I have betrayed my shaikh for his traits
Are betrayal, though I always emulate his traits

13. So I said, “What have your eyes observed in him
Of witchcraft as the people claim of his greatness?”

14. She said, “His sacred law supersedes
The holy law, and by it saints till Doomsday are sealed”

15. “But the miracles! They have been magnificent, the greatest being
That the unlawful has become unforbidden”

16. “The religion of the Hashimite Prophet has been found
Contradictory, and the talk of libertines deemed uprightness”

17. “The shaikh shares all the wives of the young men
By force, though they have not been justly apportioned”

18. “Silk khirqas on his outskirts, round which waves
Of Ardaniyya crash, musk-scented”

19. “They strut about, imaged in the weaver's art of Sanaa
On its borders, while lightning smiles at them”

20. “They come to him singly by night, that he may get
All he lusts for, and by day in droves”

21. “As if they are Zulaikha and he is Joseph
Save that Joseph was protected by his Lord”

22. “And that he possesses half of beauty, and that
No ambition of his has fallen short of its goal”

23. “As if, were it not for vituperation, he would be
A generous bridegroom transcending people in generosity”

24. She said, “Do you deny what I have said
Of the party of the noble one (al-Muqaffa) lost in error?”

25. “Walking the path of Taha in his deeds
One who did not act but with what he knew”

26. So I said, “By God, that is the noble one, and
What a splendid cloak he has cast over you!”

27. “How many naked destitutes has he clothed in honour!
And how many a wretched poor army has he vanquished for you!”

28. “By God, he has a pure heart in which God
Has set a wisdom dark in hue”

29. “By God, he has the awe of a fierce lion
Radiant, yet terrible in his heat”

30. “He charges against innovations grown old, determined
To defend the truth though opponents take flight”

31. They said, “His name in our clubs is ‘the Misguided,’
Not a mouth denied.” I said to them, “That was no disease to poison him!”

32. “Had you given your own shaikh this name
His traits would correspond to the name's traits in the one so named”

33. “As for the noble one, he did not care what you said
Of him, even if some of you insulted him”

34. “Nor do I deem him called ‘the Misguided’ if
He denied concealment and suspicion regarding the Chosen One”

35. “Or if he said what was said in the Book, for he has
The saying of God's Messenger as his protection”

36. “God bless him, whom the God of the Throne so long
As the zephyrs blow and the air brings its breath