1. O ear of time, if I say then hear
The sigh of one in anguish, sorrowed and pained

2. Hear every voice whose call you hear
No good in an ear called but does not respond

3. The vicissitudes of time have been against me and sold me
My reach shortened and my reach shortened

4. And took me out from where I was worthy
And brought me down with injustice, not my rightful place

5. With the sword of Ibn Mahdi and Fātik's sons
I was made to move from place to place, my side and my bed

6. I set out for Egypt seeking glory and wealth
And found them in the shade of a barred life

7. I visited the kings of the Nile when their Nile increased
So I praise my visitors and fertilize my pasture

8. And I won a thousand gifts from the victor
His gifts for ability, not for affectation

9. And how often have I been collared
By a helping hand, moving between awake eyes and sleep

10. And the son of Ruzayq gave me glory and wealth
Beyond my hopes and aspirations

11. And he inspired my hearing with the treasures of his poetry
So I knew him as the best companion

12. And Shāwir's hands are not mean
Nor in my view violating a pact

13. Kings who guarded for me a sanctity that became
Chaff, guarded by successors but not guarded

14. And the sun of generosity returned to their delegation
As some said about Ali and Joshua

15. Their ways to generosity follow the Sunnah
Though they differ from me in Shiite doctrine

16. So say to Saladin whose task is justice
That which I complained of, so I plea

17. I complained and the spokesmen of my need said
“If the doors are closed, then knock”

18. So I coaxed with a lover's coaxing and said what
I care not for natural disposition or affectation

19. And I have such manners that if I explain them
You'd know I'm the quality of Ibn al-Muqaffa‘

20. I stayed with you three months, a guest
Telling my heart “Be patient though distressed”

21. I make excuses for my servants, horses, and travel bags
With whatever weak patched-up excuse I've heard

22. Your reward to visitors in every town
Scatters the group of the hopeful dispersed

23. And how many guests of the court, whose tongues
If cut off, cannot be helped by a finger

24. Streets enjoy your blessings though embittered
In Alexandria, my courtyard

25. And those owed debts straitened me, so there was
None but your court, my refuge and escape

26. So O guardian of Islam, how could you abandon them
My followers lost amid bareness and hunger

27. We called you from near and far, so answer us
God answers when called, the Creator

28. To God I complain of the nights of poverty
We returned therein to seek the refuge

29. We were content and did not ask you for patience and restraint
Until we were lacking in the tongue of the content

30. And when the saliva choked our throats
We came to you complaining of agony

31. If you shepherd people by jurisprudence alone
By it is my quality and even my gown and veil

32. Do you not shepherd me to al-Shāfi‘ī when you
Are the greatest intercessor with the Highest Intercessor

33. And help him wherever you are his helper
With piercing blades and no breach of law

34. Nights whose jurisprudence Iraq does not know
In Egypt, nor Shām's winds by commotion

35. As if with them I'm a believing man of Pharaoh’s people
Defending my religion even if it's my death

36. Are they from the world's good or its evil?
Your pleasure with the world by what it did with me

37. You took hold of victory’s rein then abandoned me
While I watch from view of your ascent and hearing

38. So why don’t you make it easy on me and turn
The turn of the benefactor, freely giving?

39. Is it because I'm not less than the group
You opened to them the gates of ample giving?

40. Or is it what I made clear of disturbances
That blew against my religion but I did not waver?

41. And I turned away thousands unpaid
Not glancing at them, not noticing, not longing

42. Or is it one art of my skills—
It's poetry, though inspired poetry indeed

43. If you characterize me a poet, I'll come first
And if you characterize me a prose writer, I'll come first

44. Natural dispositions and dangers in the created
Independent of crafts of contrived speech

45. I asked you for a loan for your nights’ religion
And you imposed it on me against my will, disobedient

46. And I emigrated hoping you’d set me free
A salary long held since Chosroes and Tubba‘

47. I wish you were one who brought the East my rising
To know my source if Persian and uncouth

48. I'm none but a standing sword unsheathed by
A palm or a pearl unset in rough

49. And a ruby in a necklace revolving
Around carnelians of etched agate

50. And how the tenderness of the tongue has died of thirst
While the gullets were awash with water, dry

51. So O connecter of livelihoods, how could you leave me
To hold out to the Nile of wishes a severed palm?

52. Do you think that whenever a man thirsts
At one with a sense of smell, when I thirst with one whose nose is cut off?

53. The darkness of one whose heart is cracked—is there
A way for it to mend the cracked heart?

54. And I swear if your nights said to the darkness
“Return the disappearing stars” it would say to them “Emerge!”

55. Tomorrow the matter of giving me and cutting off my livelihood
Is by your decree so give however you wish and forbid

56. Such is the fate of men, and if it comes
By your decree then keep as you wish or lose

57. So O planter of benevolence in every soil
You have obtained a land that grows gratitude, so plant

58. For in my view if conduct is lost, its strangeness
Is praise like the scattered fragrance

59. And a note has gone out folding this poetry
Tomorrow my hopes in it to best hopes

60. I want it to release my debt and allowance
So release them as the command is yours and decree

61. And between me, and glory, honor, and wealth
Are events I fear without your decree

62. It's just a period we seek
While livelihoods have burst from every spring

63. And whatever good you wish for me, then do
For you are worthy of generosity, righteousness and piety

64. And placing the white hands wherever