1. The sorrows that separate have spared you my union,
And the spears in the streets have spared you the banner of humiliation.

2. What yearnings have I missed, what dawns
Of wishes before the riding beasts stretch forth their necks!

3. Let me stay and make the land flourish, and seek out another,
For in between, if sorrow keeps me from it, there is separation.

4. Not all who are granted glory are thankful,
Nor every endowed one, with wealth, content.

5. No night lodged me without causing me to spend the night awake―
Not that, but yearnings keep me from sleep.

6. My journeys are cut off from journeys of men, as if
For every precarious route I contend, pulling up the tent pegs.

7. Does the days each day destroy my flank
And does adversity strike me with its calamities?!

8. One who severs kindness with villainy
Sells honest praise for dispraise―a seller!

9. I have not met one who tastes affection except he be a liar,
Whom the bird of betrayal makes to be ravaged.

10. And for remoteness from a settlement of ‘Âmir,
Which shakes the fingers with “peace,” until not a finger remains!

11. Had you not supplied us peace the night before,
We would have set out, and the necks of the riding-beasts would have submitted.

12. It drives away affection when it dispatches its promise
As lies, while I in hoping am content.

13. And the warbling of doves deludes me with their song,
While my sighs to the doves are tricksters.

14. The yearning of riding-beasts taught my brain passionate love;
How, then, can solitary doves console it?

15. By your disgrace you have shamed a heart I was keeping safe
When a gleam of resolve shone forth for me, radiant.

16. You forestalled my despair, winning it,
And did not wait for my opinion―yet still I yearn!

17. I have no need for the rulers of lands
If the spears refuse to obtain it.

18. I have no occupation with poetry; rather,
Through it I explain what the yearnings say.

19. And if the melody of his chant struck the hearing
Of kings, they would know that all glory lies in what I create!

20. The days say to me, though they are stingy:
“Go ahead—ask! Either a bestower or a refuser!”

21. I have seen a generous man whose abode
Is never devoid of a protector, even were the lands desolate.

22. The fire of sickness has not been lit in his encampment
At night, even if the winds are turbulent.

23. When the wind contends with him,
Its rays point the wayfarers and the riding company to rest.

24. Begrudge, O Banū Firas, what lies in your palms for glory―
Yet the days will always return.

25. Hold back the hands of war from violence
When the cutting blades permit being held back.

26. How many night raids have stirred up the night and awakened
The hearts of the cowardly and the betrayers drowsing?

27. The eyes of strongholds and stars are towering heights,
While the cooking pots between them are veils.

28. There is no choice but blades whose souls
Gasp with thirst, with nothing for them but swords to assuage it.

29. This is the day its horses gleam with the radiance of its weapons,
So its specters above the dust are shining.

30. You see the she-camels, darkened of sides, and above them
The gown of calamity turning red from them are flames leaping high.

31. And a band of riders, as if the earth itself
Rose up toward them, embracing them on their course contending!

32. If the cheek of night had smiled with the morn’s
Grin, the shining dawn would not have named it “veils.”

33. When they travel beneath the darkness, their faces
Are for the glowing dawn—its first harbingers.

34. If they disappear into darkness, the night will not ask about them,
As if they are its ascending stars within it.

35. And mirage ornaments for it create wonderful images
To amuse the onlooker’s gaze—and deceive!

36. Do not be amazed at their traveling in its confusion;
Raging darkness and clouds are natural for confusion.

37. A land where the night loses its way through its expanses
And its furrows make it shudder, along with the deeper furrows!

38. I traversed it while the dawn was rending the darkness,
With openings the heavy rain does not meet.

39. The dark’s enclosure lengthened across it as if
Its darkness for the stars were lofty mosques.

40. It has stretched from the breadth of the galaxy and bent over,
As if the Pleiades were within it a palm thumping!

41. I dedicated my gaze to the two first magnitude stars
Until there shone from the dawn a gleam burst forth shining.

42. It is as if they are two friends, each said
To the image of his brother, “Speak—for I hear!”

43. If I do not withdraw my hand from generosity,
The crafts have never extended their hands to it.

44. And if glory does not alight in my courtyard,
Neither have dignities nor high abodes made me their neighbor!

45. O Abū Qāsim! In poetry, you are glorified!
For you, specious blades until the time of death!

46. A brother time does not see worthy to eulogize
Even if misfortunes guaranteed they would not see him!

47. Bold amidst the strikes of catastrophe, a rider―
Staunch amidst the tumult of events, overwhelming,

48. You will unfurl the water of pride in the cup of my praise,
While I in the water of bounty do not contend with you.

49. For you, a newborn whose pride his birth
Announces to those who ask―its means are wide.

50. A baby, if night were to envelop his face,
The sleeping-quarters would not border his south.

51. And a smiler who capers in the water of his beauty,
Over his soul, from the onlookers come bolts of lightning.

52. Fate cast at him from enmity every heart
With a straight shooting arrow, while he is gentle.

53. They target him with glances that they might wrench him away,
While their eyes before him are humble images.

54. They have not felled him with glances; rather
For their own souls, his eyes are wrestling grounds.

55. They wish that, along with hatred, even hearts
Would not see him, even the communal meetings!

56. When they smile, know that their faces
Are tears having lips as water-spouts.