1. I came to you as a feast-day visitor,
Not led to pluck unripe fruit.

2. They had been bits of dry bread from a worn-out, decayed wallet
Crumbs from the table of turning-away integuments.

3. They had set out from on high as a landmark,
Its wells far-extended in their run.

4. When the guides tried its unknown parts,
They endured five pitch-black nights.

5. They beguiled their night, but when it darkened
The tents fluttered with no pitched camp.

6. They made endurance out of ease the pillar for it
And a dangling thing its every pillar white-blazed.

7. When they came close to stations made of sliding sand,
They stayed over a sandhill whose pebbles were unmoved.

8. I am indeed the client of the Caliph come visiting
And I see the people of my visit and presentation.

9. The healthy man is not like one whose heart is sickened,
I am his boon companion, his heart unsickened.

10. I guaranteed, so long as the Caliph was safe with wealth,
The seas are not for the briny soil made sodden.

11. A sea whose streams pour down freshness
And to which the seas of sweetness flow.

12. May your Lord reward you for your fine loan,
He of excellent support, most open to those who borrow!

13. God has ordained that you should be Caliph,
The best of mankind, and the elect one chose you!

14. O son of cleansing smites whose leagues
Bunched on the spreading plain came thick.

15. Your Lord has given you from His abounding bounty
A kingdom whose anklets were not pushed away.

16. Will you forbid me to say to an unjust person,
“If you are a boon companion, then turn acid”?

17. When the genealogies of Umayya are examined,
You are the purest extract of the tribe most strong.