1. By the bliss of memories, they belong to the past
Yet how many seekers of glory do not keep up

2. And in hardship's grip, the wise take heed
While in life's pleasures, the confident are misled

3. I see life passing day by day, if only
We were distant from its woes and calamities

4. Yearning for people is to be saved from perdition
Yet every neck is caught in death's noose

5. Most whom you consult are not resolute
And most whom accompany you do not agree

6. If you examine hearts, you find enemies’ hearts
In the bodies of those claimed to be loyal

7. I have a love untainted by hypocrisy
Or words of pretense from a dissembler

8. I fool myself beyond insight and hearing
Not looking at life through the lens of truth

9. Yet I know if the guide is my survival
Then death will no doubt be my escort

10. And I have gathered wealth only as spoils
For those who outlive me, and as blame for my Sustainer

11. Greyness breathed through my head as if
It were the sheen of a polished sword in its scabbard

12. I'm not distraught that a color changed, rather
I see old age as a severing rope round my neck

13. So why do I blame the treacherous days
When my youth betrayed me without a taste

14. My greyness reproaches me as if I originated it
Who can make the whiteness of separation remain?

15. And behind this greyness is what I cannot transcend
With a barrier that makes me forget all barriers

16. The daytime of greyness to me does not portend
A return to youth's bright intoxicated night

17. Glory is only to invade the living with spears
And tethering the torrents in the valleys of mountains

18. It is sheathing your swords in every lofty minaret
And planting your spear-ends in the summits

19. You do not accept sullying honor for an instant
Walking in brilliant garb of decoration

20. So for glory what brings me nearer to spears
And makes my spear detest chests of warriors?

21. May God water a soul whose survival
Harms my body, tempting it with what had flowed

22. It tasks me with a journey to no destination
Harming the sons of my lineage and future kin

23. A night like the eye of a gazelle but for its stars
I traversed, grasping from its dawn like a thief

24. Running in the dark as if I saw it
With vision piercing calamities like lightning

25. A riding band who halted briefly there
Scraped the earth with their hands and mounts

26. Then rode off quickly with Jesus' hands that seemed
Like the trunks of reeds flowing in the wastes

27. I'm not one vexed in heart by travel
Or reminded of loved ones by ruins

28. Rather, companion of the beast in all its aims
And rider through nights of steppe and lightning

29. May God tend to those I left not out of choice
Matching my joy to my illness and weakness

30. Taking from my heart one I loved dearly
And making love in it for another undeserved

31. If you wish the worries not to abandon you then be a stranger
And if you wish the dove to come then be gone

32. Every stranger, worries make his heart their home
Especially the heart of a longing emigrant

33. How about a glance of one whose glance is that
Of a sickly, body with a lover's heart?

34. If I'm one who denies longing in secret
Then how often my tears flowed from yearning doe-eyes

35. And how often I stop at every halt
And find rest in every lightning flash

36. I yearn for one who does not reciprocate
No ardent desiring heart can be found

37. I have dear ones loftier than seeking
The embrace of a companion in bed

38. My passions from all intimacy are disabled
Neither closeness gratifies me nor distance allures

39. In seductions is no joy for one who sees
Nor in wild roses a breeze for one who sniffs

40. May God cast me from this land to another
And cut off from these people my attachments

41. Among them are many promise-breakers
And many speakers of pretense, not truth

42. They think glory belongs to the wealthy
And the sum of knowledge is vying in boasting

43. Loyalty like a water-skin for a friend
And betrayal like spear-ends that swerve

44. If not for the son of Moses, there would not be in our time
A refuge for an afflicted soul or a place for one who knocks

45. Nor would the wrist of a horseman maneuver spears
Nor would the hand of a giver extend provision

46. He has enveloped us from every land with a breeze
And rained on us from every atmosphere with showers

47. When resolved, no deterring critic can dissuade him
And when provoked, no shrill neigh can calm him

48. And if he aims to seize the lands by conquest
Submission walks in their crowns and turbans

49. For him is heritage glory and honor
Taken from noble white swords and early risers

50. He continues to meet every lofty eminence
Vying with spear-ends and carnelians

51. His swords do not cease in every age
To fill the places of men's necks and shoulders

52. He unsheathes them like unripe berries on mud
And sheathes them red like anemones

53. His spears convey his deepest desires
And his views, the soundest accompanying

54. Horses nimble as hilltops, audacious
In the stab, watering blood with stabs

55. If a herd is routed or routing, they vie
To route the enemy before the fleeing flock

56. They turn eyes that have been startled by fear
And their brows are covered in dust of ordeals

57. Ears pricked to each news and turn of events
Eyes piercing in wait for every deviant

58. They recall the threat whose day
Makes forget the tug of tethering pegs

59. They terrify the heart of a lion if undaunted
And rival peers if unrestrained

60. Congratulations on an eid whose fortune is double
As Al-Wasmi doubled the yield of gardens

61. And how many like this eid you fulfilled its duty
In Mecca, in the shade of its narrow valleys

62. And you drove the steeds to it in hurried pace
Jostling in their patterns and finery

63. Goaded under the whips as if they were
When darkness gripped, hands of gleaners

64. The swift-footed trouble them or the road narrows
To the sanctuary precinct, constricted

65. And which site under its shade is revered?
Glorious, trodden by eyes of pilgrims

66. And most that the eye encounters or sees
Is creation's flow to its Creator's proximity

67. Eighty cycles you gave the rites in their passing
Without being hindered by any barrier

68. And I think the greatest that I may see you again
Making pilgrimage in the like of those shining moons

69. Father of Ahmad, this is my request and this
Is my purpose that has set you apart from creatures

70. And I do hope from you what I do not proclaim
Fearing a gossip or watching enemy

71. Inevitable is a blessed day like
A flash in the midst of hailstorms

72. Great of distant roar in the hearing of one who hears
Far from the roar's origin in the speaker's utterance

73. I anticipate in it relaxation of spirit
And how much relief for one aggrieved by straits!

74. And this is my saying of you, a rain yet maybe
I have deflected enmity with lightning bolts

75. If one day you summon me, you task me only
With cutting the lands and the towering heights

76. It is enough from it what you were pleased to hear
Though most speech of people is prattle