1. Ask the abode of Ghawr, where are its gazelles
And where did its full moon set, and where do its pleiades sleep?

2. Since the day its people departed,
Sorrow has become accustomed to my lament.

3. But that place, though afflicted with what has befallen it,
Is firm, and time is violent in its calamities.

4. I have such anguish for its people, if I complained of it
To them, they would sympathize, though they are silent stones.

5. We stopped at it, and every weeping eye
Rained the covenants of tears and their promises.

6. And its soil grew plants from the cloud's tears
Which gave life to the valley, a guide to its torrents.

7. Can the living man be praised for my elegy,
Or should the rain that lamented with me be praised?

8. No, but by the passage of time, no downpour struck the abode
Except his death rattle, and its panting sighs.

9. By a night during which my passion made my resting place its grave
And what passionate one's resting place are not his tombs?

10. I passed the night like a frightened gazelle, strengthening its bonds
With a noose of dry sinew its hunter set up.

11. My two friends, is there any favorer for me among you today
When the anguished finds none to solace him?

12. In an age that taught betrayal to its people
So do not depend on one whose pact you tie.

13. How many a friend, after absence, returned to me an enemy
And lions stalked beneath my ribs, hiding.

14. They rode the steeds of glory, and glory carried them
And drove them, and the talk of nations and their gossip.

15. When one turned away from his path to them
Glory guided them rightly to their intended destination.

16. I say to them, while my ribs are broken with tuberculosis
And our livers suffer from what we are forced to endure:

17. Set upright the shoulders of the orphans, for they
Are pillars for him whom poverty does not frighten off.

18. By the white, tender one, whose lands are like
The mouths of drinking vessels and their streams.

19. The perfumes are Alexandrian and built for us
A lofty palace which his ambition and his hands built.

20. No trees but his trees, no carpenter but he
No branches but his branches and his reclining places.

21. No praise but to al-Muʿizz ibn Sāliḥ
When his favors and praiseworthy acts are counted.

22. More decisive than the blade of a Yemeni sword his resolve
And his schemes cut sharper than the trials of time.

23. Greed and misery grow more
However much the punishment in his face and his hands increase

24. And it is said in proverbs, Kaʿb and Ḥātim
And no Ḥātim but you are the one I find.

25. And how strange we praise the merit of an absent one
And neglect to praise one whom we witness!

26. If you wish to banish poverty, reside in his abode
For the protector of the state banishes it entirely.

27. The brother of generosity, God did not stain his honor
With any disgrace, nor did deceit mix with his pacts.

28. His laws manifold, either his right hand
Or his hospitality, or his banquets.

29. When you say poetry, beware of it, for verily he
Is an expert, if the critic does not criticize poetry.

30. Never have I said any poetry but I gifted it,
For I am the Jinnī of poetry and its contriver.

31. It is solely his, unique in his time,
I composed the pearl which I found for him.

32. So his enemy did not cease agitating his heart
And hatred blazed in his entrails against his envious rival.