1. I seek to preserve the purity of affection from the turbidity of reproach,
And the face of acceptance from the motes of blame and dust.

2. I entrust to the Merciful a pact absolved,
From which the eye of estrangement and the stigma of sin have been averted.

3. I complain to Him of pouring out incoherence
That loosens the slanderous, lying, backbiting tongue.

4. And I seek His guidance to steady eloquent speech,
Lest it be cast into disorder by a rough intruder.

5. It cowers, fearing to assist and bring together
An inarticulate person, if sagacity were to awaken him, he would not awaken.

6. Into danger, between safety and peril.
I speak, though I have no tears of regret

7. Whose predecessors draw lessons with the sword and flame.
O he who has deafened my heart with an arrow poisoned

8. By your hand - truly, you have shot wide of the target!
Would you destroy a house you do not cease to frequent

9. And ignite a breast whose love you harbor?
A letter came to me whose arrogance I cannot sanction,

10. Though it echoes your compositions in books.
It came to me perfumed with fragrant aloes wood,

11. So I said: “Newly arrived from the presence of the beloved!”
And it shook its wings for sheer delight

12. As my limbs echoed it with fervor.
Yet I suspected the musk was mixed with blame -

13. For musk in its title bears a waft of censure.
I was roused only by the uncovering of its veil

14. To reveal a grim visage inspiring terror.
I wondered how it imagined

15. Its embassy on behalf of one so veiled and hidden!
I had barely wondered when slumber overcame me,

16. That I might attain in dreams an understanding of the heart.
Dreams are one of the means by which

17. A person may interpret visions in his heart.
O you whose eloquence the excellence of poetry acknowledges,

18. And whose perspicacity the heights of rank affirm,
Your letter surpassed bands

19. Whose unfastened scrolls, when opened, rushed to leap up.
Alas for me, to gently handle

20. A soft parchment sheet on rough papyrus!
Alas for my distress, should it tear,

21. Exhausting the courier’s water skin!
I had hoped for a garden, redolent

22. With camphor, vibrant with sap.
I would sip scented drafts from its flowers,

23. Cooled by pure, sweet water on branches.
I would kiss the rose’s cheek, moist with dew,

24. As pearl drops spot its golden dinar.
I would lean on the branch bent by the morning breeze

25. To kiss a cheek smoothed by its zephyr.
My glances would roam its beauty,

26. Plucking ripeness from its orchards.
The passing breeze would bear witness to me

27. Of its cypress tree, swaying in tresses.
My breath would inhale the fragrance of its zephyr

28. That draws out musk where dust was scattered.
My hearing would be entranced by the laments of its birds

29. Warbling foreign melodies in Arab song.
I would see its fulfillment guaranteed

30. By documents bearing witness plainly.
Yet no sooner did I glance than it blazed up

31. With a fire whose violent sparks terrified.
I stood dumbfounded,

32. Flipping my palm, glancing, and heart.
How strange! - How did it ignite

33. Without the parchment burning in its flames?
How strange! - How did it spread

34. Among the lines, reaching to my heart!
In a single night it gained glory

35. Though my eyelids were its only drawback.
Your letter surpassed all, heading straight

36. To my heart, without pausing to greet.
It broke through guards of merit, fearing

37. To intrude with a glance that charms or dazzles.
A noble letter in its lineage, though tied

38. To one unworthy of it in manners and lineage.
It came to me while I was unprepared for its like,

39. Startling me, not gently reproaching.
I composed myself, though recalcitrant,

40. And said, for I had perceived your scent:
“Do you not know this letter is affiliated

41. To one whose mere glance from his eyelids enchants my heart?
If he but placed his slipper on my eyes

42. That have become sleepless, they would rest.
If I moved to intercept his censure,

43. I would imagine drawing smooth drafts from a sweet spring.
He has a genealogy requiring his rights be kept,

44. Even if his contents belie his claim of lineage.
Rectitude of evidence may reveal sudden estrangement,

45. And smooth sophomistry conceal rugged hardship.”
Take it that it is an arrow of love, though you

46. Insist resolutely it is no intimation of affection.
Consider when claws scratch

47. Another hand, mimicking decoration for mange.
And say, when one hand is bitten

48. By the teeth of another - is forgivefulness not best?
By the rights of affection! Were it not for reverence

49. For its composer, my son enraptured with love,
My fingers would have shredded it

50. And my tongue pierced it with a cutting blade.
I would have unleashed on it a barrage

51. Of eloquence, easily reducing it to shreds.
Never do faults in speech excuse

52. A lack, nor words void of regret.
By my life! The author showed restraint,

53. Arranging his phrases ingeniously.
He attempted removing the bridle of forbearance,

54. Shaking my mind subtly as crawling ants would a boulder.
Or he wished to provoke me to reply in anger

55. With an initiative that cannot be retracted once unleashed.
God forbid! The one whose knowledge filled my heart

56. Would not act except with what pleases both friend and Lord.
How could I violate a pact of friendship

57. When helpless to carry the burden of severed ties?
The loss of affection is slight to the noble one

58. Who rewards a wrong with a wrong.
As for me, tried and true,

59. Flattery of a friend is from dignity.
When you gain a friend's hand,

60. Entrust him to the care of respect and love.
Prepare for him the bosom of your kindness,

61. That he might rest on the plenty of your dunes.
If you sense the bitter from him while he is angry,

62. Bury it in the bitter, keeping it hidden.
Draw good conclusions regarding all his affairs,

63. Not provoking him with the carping of one of high rank.
Take from him amnesty for deeds and words, discarding

64. Contention, even if he stirs and rouses you.
Release him from the thinness of obligation, embracing him

65. As a loving brother with a duty of affection.
You see obligation is truly a hardship,

66. Even if it leads to happiness in the end.
Beware of conferring a favor then boasting,

67. For boasting is like fire to kindling.
If you stand higher, speak lowly to him,

68. Otherwise, replace gratitude with thanks.
Adorn his hidden and his shame, broadcasting

69. His praise, visiting and writing to him.
Thus you perpetuate love with every friend,

70. Drawing the pillars of devotion from hidden springs.
Do not make your friend a witness against himself,

71. Nor spy on privacy to expose its faults.
Tie back the wandering compliance with gentle speech,

72. Confirm wayward affection with utmost respect.
Shame coldness with indulgence, discarding

73. The stubbornness of soul in reciprocation and doubt.
There is no peace if wrong is met with coldness,

74. No contentment if wrong is repaid with wrong.
Be balanced between discord and its opposite,

75. For hypocrisy is agreeing without conviction.
Beware of showing affection then turning from it,

76. Trust not the turning of hearts from persuasion.
My speech imparts these counsels, humoring

77. One whose eye is closed to meaningful address.
That befit the lamb's gentleness and the wolf's grasp.

78. I incorporated praise then extracted it,
Like a sword sheathed in ornamental carving.

79. If hesitation disturbed you before today,
Doubt has now departed without veil.

80. Your tongue liberally laces me with pure praise,
And your eyes uplift me to the height of dignity.

81. Another may reveal in earnest and jest
A nature inclined from love and ties.

82. Your gentle ways refuse to alarm a loyal one,
The prosperous exclusively enjoy your company.

83. Never let the reproach dim the gaze of affection,
For the fruits of reproach are cooling of love.

84. If I say it was merely a chance slip,
Is there anything for you but pardon for lapses?

85. Those you love - how dear their lives are to you!
If I said those who love you - I would guard all who love!

86. If it were possible, in redeeming lives,
I would ransom mine for their alarged spans!

87. If what pleases you deprives me of dignity,
Dignity has shunned me, and resolve has spurned me.

88. If your wish deprives me of comfort,
I have eschewed roses, thirsting.

89. To bring you joy - how bitter was its taste!
Still it lingers in me, terrifying.

90. Congratulations that I still quiver from it,
And he who would end it meets grave affliction.

91. Grant that it was a slight, like a gentle pat -
Was it not met with utmost refinement and dignity?

92. In one noble of promise and love there is mediation
For my sin - sins preclude my nearness.

93. In the course of mind, resolve, and argument
There is such gentleness as keeps the bond of love.

94. O my neighbor who has wronged me with insult!
After estrangement, I crave the warmth of your love.

95. Be merciful to me, whatever your counsel;
In my life, your judgment of me brings healing.

96. I attempt to rouse affection with contention,
Yet rousing love with contention is futile.

97. You made us drink the bitter cup of reproach,
Now replace it with sweet.

98. Without your precedence I would stray, baffled,
From the difficult path to reunion.

99. My pen is a champion whose thrusts
No formidable foe can deflect in battle.

100. With leisure he hurls his spears -
He is the starling, though he bites clay like a viper.

101. He is the lance, steady, not quivering,
The arrow, though not flying astray.

102. A perilous weapon, a penetrating stroke,
Pure, polished, sharpened at the point.

103. It clarifies pure white from the dark folds of the mute
And washes away the motes from sleepy eyes.

104. It straightens the crooked tracks of the devious
And breaks the exaggerated fancies of the arrogant.

105. It deafens the hearing of the stubbornly deaf
And severs the forms of figurative speech.

106. As if watchful eyes, when it flows,
Squint at it, blackness coveting it.

107. As if enamored hearts wish
Their black bile were dyed by it.

108. If you unleash it at a target, it returns a nightingale,
If the lofty scorn it, it remains a flame.

109. You see the peacock's tail as an arrow that matches
Its beak in piercing the neck's nape.

110. It overtakes the edge of the lightning in the sky,
And exposes the torrents on the plateau's face.

111. It is the faded and withered that, if imbued
With a drop in the tail, would leaf out lushly.

112. It is the predecessor giving light, though its precededness
To the course is credited for its advantage.

113. It was selected from pure, highbred, untiring steeds
That do not weary at swimming, nor tire at running.

114. Habituated, when not distracted by love,
To never deviate from firm principles.

115. It fears, if you one day yield it your hand,
The assembly of minds in the field of wonders.

116. And knows the sea foams up its billows
So speak of the rumbling, surging, stormy sea!

117.
However you wish to adorn the lion's neck,

118. Dunes, expanses, meadows, plateau or dale,
Rivers cascading copiously over the plain,

119. Gardens crowned with vivid, moist greenery,
This is inadequate for what satisfies realms:

120. Raids in straits, and plunging with steeds into peril,
Daring and resplendent feats

121. Nothing glimpsed of events unless you compose them,
Vanquishing the frustrated with one frustrated,

122. And bombarding the heights with piercing censure.
It suffices you in might to contend

123. With churning pus burst from a swollen tumor.
Does not that hostile one know the status

124. Of the minister whose sagacity brings prosperity?
May God protect that minister’s insight

125. And fine assessing of reactions to events.
Noting a drop of brilliance, he kindled with it

126. His imagination, and the drop ignited to flame.
He devoted himself to writing, so the status

127. Of composition rose through his dedication.
I do not lie when boasting of its affiliation

128. To him - it openly attests to him with proof.
It has no peer but him, and he

129. Is the knight of the arena of composition and books.
The chain of his writing extends the neck

130. Of eloquence gently, enlivening the heart.
And it curves turns that reveal their pearly drops

131. More verdant than the flowers' fresh shoots.
Your ear may pluck up the luster of his letters

132. From articulation, and your eye from his lines.
By God! A refined, chaste youth

133. Who outshines the full moon in its halo of wonders!
By God! A pure dignity and humility

134. Fortified by the bastion of glory and awe.
Ally of the two excellences - noble and devout,

135. Prepared for victory in present and future.
In my heart and eye he resides,

136. Though only the heart may house his dwelling.
He attained in the minister’s soul a station

137. That even stars in the sky envy vying for it.
He is worthy of it and suited to it,

138. And worthy of the eminence attributed to him.
O soulmate, unique one, whom

139. I devoted my praise and sincere love!
Whose qualities, whenever recalled,

140. Make the face of time smile on me, having frowned.
Whose elevation, whenever I raised rhymes in his praise,

141. My speech reciprocated, and my heart replied.
Deign to listen - in you lies

142. The sparkle of life’s chain that kindled my passion!
Deign to heed - in you rests

143. The pouring of speech's elixir that gave life to my flame!
And here is she, the eloquence of love, drawing near

144. Greetings with a smile, overlooking dignity.
She blends the bitterness of advice with the cool

145. Of his praise, as lightning blended with heavy rain.
And she pours from the quiver of praise a bare blade,

146. Your qualities extracting its sharp point.
She speaks with a voice that stops shooting stars mid-flight,

147. The east indistinguishable from the west.
More arousing than the amorous, flirtatious glance,

148. Beckoning to love with the batting of eyelids.
More enchanting than a mouth alluring you by name

149. In prose as lush as moist pearls.
More penetrating in hearing than a singing minstrel,

150. With passion, and the lover's promise to the loved.
More vitalizing to the heart than the draft of Babylon,

151. More wondrous to the witness than the lush meadow.
More potent to the mind than wine,

152. More amazing to the frequenter than the fertile dale.
So be very generous in pardoning her, for I composed her

153. Extemporaneously, responding to reproach with counter-reproach.
I could not defer her to refine upon

154. A manner befitting your praise that I desire.
I came up with something like the sudden warbling

155. Of a bird, to which I returned adding and refining.
I came with a meager amount which I strung together,

156. Beautifully composed without density or slack.
Though that beauty has outgrown the necklace,

157. Make it an amulet to adorn the bosom.
If the rhetorical schools contested it, they would become

158. Schools of hearts and books through it.
It poured out as the reproaches of heavens,

159. Cascading like a torrent down a slope.
I suspected none but the appreciative

160. Could respond to its delivery with thanks.
It repeated sincere, permitted intoxication,

161. A sweet, ever-relished draft.
Ascend, O pride and glory, to the staircase

162. Of might atop the ascending stars!
The one whose love and friendship smooth my way

163. When censure and events would make it rough.
The one I see, when my purpose is unclear,

164. As the sparkle of life's chain that sparked my passion!
The one I hear, when conceding to him,

165. As the pouring of speech's elixir that sparked my flame!
This is the English translation of the Arabic poem you provided.