1. Is there anyone at this ruined abode,
With patience to help a questioner?

2. Though deaf he may be, he can hear -
Preoccupied with constant worries.

3. I stood there like a specter,
Seeking help from a specter.

4. You won't see anything stranger than a she-camel
Complaining of lean flesh to another she-camel.

5. My longing, O house, and my longing for
Your pair of ruined and transient pillars,

6. My heart is for sorrows after intimacy,
While you are for someone who abandoned you.

7. I have superiority in illness and affliction
Over the reasonable, due to my intellect and trials.

8. O people of Nu'man, listen to my call
If an impassioned wise man can make you hear.

9. Will you allow us some joy, even for a day or an hour,
At the fading of our transient life?

10. Or can someone housed see
The return of a heart that left you?

11. The arrows of that departing beloved have arrived,
And found their mark in my ribs.

12. He shot me and made me deaf to Babylon -
An unerring archer, no arrows go astray.

13. His glances are magic and his words
Are sheer intoxication - and that to you from Babylon.

14. Return, even if only for a day or an hour,
To the prime of our vanishing life.

15. I have the humiliation of a beggar among you,
So do not let arrogance make you sever ties.

16. Love has made me need your bounty,
Though I never desired to gain anything.

17. I do not ask the generous for what they have,
And seek from you the dew of the stingy.

18. The fulfiller does not see my devotion to him,
Yet I hope for procrastination from the delayer.

19. Greed has not winked suggestively at me,
Nor has conferring favor burdened my shoulders.

20. Of a clay naturally disposed to glory,
Spreading the scent of the molder's generosity.

21. The ground never brought forth the like,
Softened by its pouring rain.

22. It was entrusted among its grains
As a sanctuary for the drinker and washer.

23. Or a pearl the sea brought forth freely,
So it cast it upon the shore.

24. With it Abdurraheem split the earth,
Revealing a perfect star or moon.

25. So it spread, filling the horizon
Blessings upon the progeny and descendants!

26. A people, when they draw the ropes of love
And declare allegiance, they defy the complacent and the indolent.

27. The meteors are submissive to them,
Like the inferior to the superior.

28. Or they ride in a raid against a party
Rushing to confront ineluctable destiny.

29. It is their pride that their covenants
Have impacted surviving blades and withering spears.

30. The spear exults in one who wields it,
And the slain boasts of the killer.

31. People either seek their generosity,
Or flee from that which is unobtainable.

32. Their hands shatter opposition abroad,
And open sustenance inwardly.

33. How many times they reformed the corruption of their age,
And propped up justice with equity!

34. And they judged with justice in a dynasty
Where truth overcame falsehood.

35. He who entrusts rule to other than them
Is a pleasure-seeker in temporary enjoyments.

36. I warded off my age fearfully from them
With the rare support in failing times.

37. The stalwart Ali braced my back -
I did not lean on him for crooked ends.

38. By the chief of the faith we penetrated
The darkness of the ruinous land.

39. Whenever a stray she-camel turns
To a steed in the wide desert.

40. Playing with the land fancifully or gravely
With two rhyming meters declining or inclining.

41. Bearing ephemeral visions and heavy
Assets upon the conveyor.

42. Above its humps and litters
Are marks of its owner's name.

43. Until we moaned with the blossoming of wishes -
Fertile, and the copious season of generosity.

44. Thus there was no fear for the secure,
No neighbor or deprivation for the questioner.

45. At the hand that mocks the stagnant
Years with the water of the dripping bucket.

46. And the first slice that forms the exemplary
Full moon's humility when waning.

47. Its good tidings strike for the delegation
The radiance of lightning in downpour.

48. He gained precedence in the ten foremost virtues
Over the reprehensible and stalemated.

49. He held dominance in the cradle, nothing
Escaped the lion's place but a cub.

50. With a begetting father,
And a son surpassing himself in merit.

51. I tested people, so you were not to me
A barrier in affection or severing ties.

52. When will I experience a lofty peak to deflect
Disasters from my chest and shoulders?

53. Let people be the pipes of the world,
While you are where achievements are realized.

54. So let your bounties suffice me for my words,
If the doer is requited with the like.

55. Every distant one's journey has phases,
The rider overtakes the pedestrian.

56. Inhabited with verses whose
Parallels are not found in time's scrolls.

57. Provision for one who travels seeking riches,
And spoils for the arriving caravan.

58. Now seriously, now in jest - not adorned
By praiser or flatterer's embellishments.

59. Its flaws, along with loving it, are its shortcomings
In the madness of its beauty's confusion.

60. Harbingers of congratulations to you
In every standing pillar and passing day.

61. And whenever a year bid farewell with them
They committed you to the trust of the next.

62. Destinies fall short of your dominion
As the barefoot falls short of the shod.