1. Who do I have if I don't find you as a helper?
Please lend me your ear for an hour, so I can make it clear

2. It's enough salvation for me to confide to you what I endure
And it's enough for you that I'm sincere

3.
None who filled their wings with anguish endured patiently

4. And none whose senses flowed with grief and yearning remained calm
I grieve like an innocent grieves over strength

5. That I did not spend to pay off my country's debts
I wasted it worrying while in the intoxication of passion in the days of youth

6. When I was most in need of it, as my nation ripened and religion decayed

7. Had I gathered it on the day of sedition
I would have opened fortified citadels and impregnable castles

8. Were it not for emotions, I would not have cared for reform
And my heart would not have been filled with moaning

9.
I counted the troubled, but found none with troubles

10. Other than the expert prisoner

11. I strive but the shackles pull me back
Surrendering as a hostage to misfortunes

12.
I hope for wealth, but what I really hope for is what

13. Soothes the anguished destitute

14. Prudence is to benefit at times with my dirham
And benefit at other times with poems

15.
It's enough misfortune that I know my worth

16. And find the times difficult

17. Without my emergence with guidance, how much sedition
Would have made the hypocrite prosperous and infatuated?

18.
And of the events, some harm the virtuous

19. And honor the despicable hypocrite

20. I prefer forbidden sweets, for the sake of
Prolonged echo, respite, and washing twice

21.
Some of me has tyrannized some other part of me, yet I do not

22. Call for justice or seek law

23. And I exceeded in benevolence, intending good for the follower
Until they called me the mad poet

24.
I enriched cheap things with the best merchandise I sell

25. Why do they not call me the swindled merchant?

26. I shunned cities, living ascetically
Seeking solitude and tranquility

27.
I am not pleased with any gathering but nature

28. Remembrance a cup, and poetry a cheek

29. What justice is there for one who forgets the plight of his soul
Forgetfully, yet remembers what befell China?

30.
I have nothing but the pen I prepared

31. As my spear of lion's fang and my smooth lance

32. However unjust people become, I make destiny
A gentle, excusing ruler over them, yet humiliating

33.
My chivalrous heroes redeem sanctuary