1. Reproach upon the world yet reproach is scant
We're content with how things are though we're distraught

2. She spoke and we listened to the lies she told
Though speech can provoke even when falsehood's wrought

3. She obscured our visions and our hearts as well
So blame lingered though she is a mirage

4. Our mouths and minds submitted to her thrall
Does she offer aught but perdition as wage?

5. By my life her ways are either ruin or defeat
Or governance that is but conquest's guise

6. We revel and make merry with nobles round
Though homesteads lie in wreck and rubble arise

7. She tricks us from the purpose intended for us
To the sea of death where veils waft as the tide

8. We seize upon days though they be calamities
That come and go bearing us little beside

9. India wept from the laughter of grey locks at my temples
Know you not youth is but borrowed attire?

10. The dust said "I see nothing" feigning ignorance
Though daylight's face is never fully hid

11. Is grey hair not wisdom that chased my confusion hence
I wake with right choices no more obscured

12. My devil now gnaws at his fingers in my presence
As the first gleams of dawn have now occurred

13. Shall I pardon the turns of fate for its trespasses
When punishment tarries and comes not to my side?

14. Shall I let it continue its excesses unabashed
When reproach is little and grievance has cried?

15. I'm done with heights if I do not set it aright
When my might has raged in it chewing like a hound

16. And if I don't subdue it with resolute might
That humbles all things no matter how profound

17. And say "What ails Homs that thorns have sprouted?"
Yet some questions have no answers to expound

18. I was exotic fruit transplanted among those not my own
That recoils upon its planter with its vines tightly bound

19. By God I did not settle contented in its climes
But a sword sheathed waiting to be drawn

20. Shall I enrage enviers by rising to the heights?
When they sat plots against me long sincespawned

21. The loftiest aim turns not from its intents
With goals no veil can obscure or enshroud

22. The first Hudhramis attained the heights
Building, succeeding, casting well their bow

23. They made the times a neighbor to their defiance
Its limbs struck down mid the war-cry's resound

24. They laid themselves before ambition so it became
Aspiration no seeker can surround

25. They took refuge with the exalted in a sanctum
That falls as drops none can recount

26. Hardships over the course of nights that seem
At once compassion and torment endowed

27. Stations in which is poison for every dissenter
Yet for subordinates agony profound

28. The turning of time frightens me now that
My steed is pointed toward the Hudhrami’s abode

29. When God destines me to meet Muhammad
The gate to magnanimity shall open broad

30. A youth in whom no hopeful's dreams grew cold
And to which they circled back from every road

31. And whom expanding knowledge never abandoned
So that it thirsts for none but what his hands bestowed

32. In valour, bounty, and grace he has grandeur
With pavilions above the stars' studded node

33. By oath were it not for the glory of his feats
He would be glory's ruins and its crumbling code

34. His glories are but honor not profit of coins
And sublimity not raiment or fine goods

35. The rival grits his teeth with ankles exposed
As high waisted pants on him cut a sorry ode

36. No fault in him except the world finds fault
Though he is above any fault thus bestowed

37. He is the rose, the lion, whose fame has coursed
With only gallantry as his trode

38. He gained his seat in the caliphate's abode
Judgements fly from him as decrees broadly load

39. Since he took up its reins the land glories in him
As clouds burst when the radiant light overode

40. Ask religion and the world if they rejoiced in him
As the day's splendor evokes mist from night's dim road

41. The Commander of the Faithful extolled him
Judgement his firmness, decree his sparks explode

42. He is the ideal exemplar from first to last
While for enviers there are pebbles and only eroded stone

43. Have not all things yielded before your iron will?
Determined spirits with divine fire goad

44. Verses of poetry I composed for you
Would that they could for you a book encode

45. If you accept them that would be my steed
O you whose judgment finest discourse has flowed

46. But am I not the garden greeting you in fragrance?
With clouds from your vicinity first sewed

47. Who thanks goodness has surely gratitude still to reap
While for bounty given the reward is never owed

48. But am I not the servant of your blessings?
The champion when all springs run corrode

49. What glory that you are its secret has witnessed?
You are the sea and all bounty is but miraged

50. A path for me to the abode?
Can rivals penetrate your grandeur on high

51. When their schemes pace about long having slowed?
When they vie with you in glory you are a lion

52. Whose claws do not spare the jackals when they're goaded
No arena flared save by your flashing blades

53. No meadow greened save by your rain its shade bestowed