1. Time sins then repents,
And the crooked becomes straight.

2. Life has a color one day, and another the next,
Each a changing hue.

3. Perhaps nights once sang softly,
Then again blew unmindful.

4. So travel on, for this world is a road
Sometimes smooth, sometimes rugged.

5. No wonder the mounts stumble
And the guide goes astray.

6. A man of equal parts difficulty and gentleness
Rises and falls.

7. He is neither lost in decline
Nor idle in ascent.

8. Like a sword whose adornment is not its embellishment,
Nor its defect, rust.

9. Say that if he obtained from the envious
What you say in jealous glory,

10. The sons of Abdel Rahim are horizons
Whose sun never sets.

11. If it rises, dawn is theirs;
If it sets, their noble son remains.

12. For them, ascend the heights if you find
The road to their heights too long.

13. Think not when they disappear
Their setting is a descent.

14. The lion in attacking or resting
Is ever a lion in its lair.

15. Water held in clouds flows
When the need makes it spill.

16. A people may leave an abode in ruins
While alive and well in another.

17. The moon traverses its mansions
Crossing from one to the next,

18. Blessed in leaving these for those,
Beautiful its departing face.

19. They parted not out of incapacity
Nor dissuaded by despair.

20. Nor did they see the summit lower
Beneath their feet and crumble.

21. How many a delicate sapling of theirs
Bore a weight beyond its strength!

22. How excellent the burdens shouldered
By the towering heights!

23. Yet for something obscured from you
Did the fledglings cry.

24. So refrain from blame, and see them tomorrow
When the colt is rested,

25. And wed to peers, her bride-price a promise,
Not destitute suitors.

26. When she calls none but you,
The negligent aid her cries.

27. They are her axis however she turns,
Her guide if she loses her way.

28. Through them affairs advance or retreat,
To their command does she submit.

29. Branches of glory are they,
Made firm by her roots.

30. United in glory they shone,
Mankind after them but forms.

31. Fathers of sincerity, proven so
By their just sons' witness.

32. Most veracious transmission of descriptions
No calumniators can impugn.

33. A people when skies grew stingy,
To their hands did the deprived flee.

34. Lofty their dreams, substantial their weight;
Possessions of theirs wild and confused.

35. Under their turbans, mountains were humbled,
And over their pens, torrents poured forth.

36. Did the sovereign seek to deprive them,
To protect from wrong or attain a prize?

37. Judge the complainant clearly,
The proof before you is manifest.

38. Ask Ali what was built by
Al-Husayn, and accept what he says.

39. A full moon: no waning diminishes him,
No association makes him disloyal.

40. Time has not cheated him of vigor,
He lives; neither dead nor sick.

41. Why blame his munificence and sympathy
If gifts like pouring rains are presumed?

42. He gave drink and irrigated, though only
A slender stream his wealth could afford.

43. While hoarders, recipients of his gifts, found fault;
In their hands, Tigris and Nile!

44. So brief his day of reckoning,
While long the night of his torment.

45. He went, his years not overburdened,
Nor betrayed by any weakness of old age.

46. Then he sped crookedly, and the steeds
Returned their reins, aggrieved.

47. His discordant pace tears the ground,
Raising dust the wretched slave smells,

48. The song of the trenchant, gleaming sword
Feeding the lean, famished hyena.

49. You were created furious at every soul
For whom ascension's glory is redundant.

50. And all bodies lack glory, so you
Seethe in their breasts, simmer in their minds.

51. Merit exalted by you was debased,
And the martyred saint and his murdered son.

52. Time cast you out of a garden
Whose breeze was acceptance, whose air welcome.

53. Charms that saddened, then softened
Like water and absorption.

54. A rising sun in the darkness
From which its moons and lights originate.

55. None approach their beauty,
While others' beauty remains concealed.

56. You have possessed my soul through affection
Until I gained freedom through bondage.

57. No fleeting authority could change
The loyalty I pledged.

58. You have sown, fertilized, while pretenders
Are barren ground, sparse vegetation.

59. You have not left me to a guide
Whose place in friendship is false.

60. He takes offense if I say, "O Generous One,"
Knowing that he is stingy.

61. For more apropos than my words
Is one whose actions contradict my speech.

62. While praise on a wrist is a bracelet,
On other hands, only shackles.

63. Nothing beyond indifference and rejection,
Like a serpent in holes out of sight.

64. The patron excuses, the friend nothing,
Nor is the intimate pardoned.

65. So seize now, while still near,
What was far in its reach.

66. Strike even a spark, for in darkness
The wick ignites however small the flame.

67. Disdain not the little of it,
Perhaps a little may benefit.

68. Show the Nayrouz face a face
That smiles in its welcoming dish.

69. A new day thatdispels
Whatever your kingdom's gloom harvested.

70. Witnessing your ascendancy is feasible,
Nothing of your command is beyond reach.

71. Whatever glory you lost will return,
Its absence from you only temporary.

72. My poetry testifies without sin,
My witness is enough confirmation.