1. You grieved though they had not yet departed; yet how will it be when they are gone?
Would that they were near, as once they were near!

2. We were eager that their tents should not be struck;
yet they were struck, and some eagerness is error and deprivation.

3. They asked after our affairs when they had gone far from us,
and we told them that since your departure no affairs have prospered.

4. The sacred month, in which it was forbidden to approach them, kept us from entering it,
and after the sacred month came Shaban, then scattering.

5. When you were far from us we moaned with the secrets of passion -
indeed, every secret, when you are far, comes into the open!

6. On my ribs are slender-waisted fair women,
of mankind, who make love sweet in the early dawn, and gazelles.

7. When the breeze draws its veil, it makes unto the zephyr
a breath, as the rind and date-spathe were wasted.

8. My gray hairs and the changing of my natural strength denied me,
so if there is no more youth or power in us, how are we to be blamed?

9. To grow old is to grow weaker, and gray hairs mean sorrow,
yet your death makes life finish, not grow less.

10. I roamed at night when the night let down its mantle,
and the star of the Chained Woman rose in the west and glittered.

11. With a litter of noble ladies the litters inclined from the dwellings,
as the brim of a beaker turns aside when the beaker is filled to the full.

12. They tread on the gravel, and it is pearls,
and they lift their dresses above it, and it is coral.

13. Now and then she attacks me, as though her ostriches
were religious monks in their cloisters.

14. When she crosses the sandhills, one like her meets her,
driving away other sandhills.

15. To the best of those from whom good is asked, and who is sought when it is needed,
and who is resorted to by riders and footmen;

16. A noble whose worth excels all men, excellent in worth,
and for whom at nightfall glory and eminence remain;

17. In him are diminished Bahram and Hatim's liberality,
Bastam's courage is belittled, and Luqman's wisdom.

18. We drowned in his boons, as though we
were, unharmed, in the midst of the sea's gulfs, great fish.

19. He is the lion who has outdone the lion, but the lion slinks away;
He is the rain whose rain excels the rain's, but the rain is pouring down.

20. He is the sea who has guided the clouds east and west,
and so irrigated the parched land, and the sea is full.

21. He is forebearing, as though anger dressed itself
in robes of patience when shabby obstinacy puts on the fur cloak.

22. His worth rose high until it was as if his boon-companion
were one of the lamps of heaven.

23. When I said a poem in which I feared his criticism,
it was as though I were a fulsome praiser and he the noble hero.

24. I thanked him for bounty, so I am not ungrateful,
nor is the bestower of bounty, by his gifts, made conceited.

25. My praise did not increase his pride, for he is a dawn
which needs no indication or proof from me.

26. I am indebted, with my good advice, to the faithful trustee, pure in counsel,
for the offering of advice, in truth, is a duty owed by the noble.

27. A generous man, of the folk I asked for favors, and they gave,
and did not boast, and spoke well, and did not refuse.

28. As a child and grown man I praised them, but they showed more
bounty toward me when they were old and youths.

29. O Abu Salih, you have sought the kings abjectly and humbly,
and for your sake Qais and Khatan bowed to the ground.

30. I swear were it not for you, benevolence would not have been created,
and but for you, neither Ma'add nor Adnan would have taken pride.

31. You stored wealth among the chiefs as though your chiefs
were its treasurers and guardians.

32. You conquered the kings of earth so that it was as if
over every ruler your sword held sway.

33. You thought little of enemies when they acted haughtily,
so they became contemptible - had your glory not been so great, they would not have been contemptible.

34. If you pardon those who seek pardon,
with you there is punishment for the sinner and pardon.

35. You are the sword, harsh toward the foe,
and in you with beneficence there is gentleness when they bend.

36. Live long as the letters I have traced spell your name,
for they will outlast men and jinn.

37. Every cloud not your palm leaves no rain,
and every eulogy not yours is false and futile.