1. My eyelids were wounded by prolonged sleeplessness,
And my tears caused them relentless sores.

2. To spare you evil, my soul did mourn for me;
Even the enemy felt compassion for me.

3. Illness made me frail; I was nearly
Claimed by the wasting disease.

4. Now you command me to be patient,
But patience from you is impossible.

5. My ailing heart implores me for you,
As if healing it were my duty.

6. To it, my disgrace because of you seems good,
And fine patience seems contemptible to it.

7. It yearns to see you without a chaperone,
But its wishes cannot come true.

8. I said, as it melted in languor –
There’s no way to console it.

9. Life wearied me, as did your absence,
O sorrowful heart!

10. Does it become me to abandon you,
When I've a heart that won't incline to another?

11. For time has turned you away from me,
Yet I'll never abandon affection for you.

12. Though we may cease to meet, desire remains,
Enduring, not vanishing.

13. Indeed, separation has dragged on. I wonder -
Will it shorten after this, or grow longer?

14. And I lose whoever time ruins with grief -
A passionate man with a thousand loves.

15. An ungenerous time is no friend to a pure lover -
A miserly time, tightfisted.

16. I may have given up meeting you, but
In my heart, remembering you kindles passions.

17. I'll be patient with fate, though it spurns me,
For the noble spirit bears tribulation.

18. You blame and rebuke me at length,
While my heart cannot grasp what you say.

19. Passion has cracked the mirror of my heart,
And sorrow, the intruder, has tarnished its face.

20. But its sheen was restored by the burnishing
Of the grace of the Majestic Patron.

21. With poetry that delights the soul -
Skilled artistry honed its genres -

22. Like the greetings it conveyed to a sick lover
Were graciously accepted -

23. As if its words were a healing draft
That racing couriers hurried along -

24. It described the Imam's manners to us, till
His meanings almost overflowed from tenderness.

25. A peerless Imam in the sciences,
Unique in merit.

26. Openhanded in divine law and virtue,
His gems of verse grant what we seek.

27. He pours on people bounty and generosity,
Gushing like flash floods.

28. He tackles the perplexities besetting every branch of knowledge,
Too profound for seasoned experts.

29. His peers in each discipline
Sold it their lifelong dedication.

30. Though grave, his patience always tempers
The joke he plays on people.

31. You see in his face a radiance, a glad tiding
Of the generosity his manner displays.

32. When cares kindle the blaze of concern,
His company is for us a shady shelter.

33.
His compassion is saving help for us,

34. His support, a pouring rain.
O scion of forebears who raced to the heights Where the noble dwell, lofty and sublime!

35. Munificence was their legacy to inherit;
Their domain was asylum for the secure.

36. When evidence attested their merit,
Proofs and accounts confirmed it.

37. I see your qualities above my power to describe,
And so I fall silent, lost for words.

38. How can I match towering edifices?
For from water, what alternative springs?

39. Maybe my stunted praise, though inadequate,
Will meet with acceptance and approval,

40. For love makes everything, however paltry,
Seem abundant, if pondered well.

41. My truthful love for you is not hidden,
Since no doubter conceals his doubts.

42. So - the sun long as celestial spheres endure -
May glory's horizon know no setting!