لَم تُرعني دار عفَت بالجَنابِ

دارِسٌ آيها كخَطِّ الكِتابِ

The abode of chastity did not shelter me,

I was not startled by an abode effaced at al-Janab,

Its resident, like the scripture’s inscription.

Its traces worn faint like the script of a book,

أَوحشت بعد آهل وَأَنيس

مِن جَوارِ خَرائِدٍ أَتراب

I felt lonesome after family and friends

Desolate now, after being populated and full of company

Nearby chatterers with shabby clothes.

By young maidens, bashful virgins of equal age,

واضِحاتِ الخُدود كالبقر الخُذّ

س عين الحمى فُروض الرَوابي

Their cheeks as clear as the udder’s cow,

Fair of cheek, like the wild cows that lag behind

The fever’s eye the duties of hilltops.

At the Spring of the Sanctuary, in the clefts of the hills.

إِنَّما راعَني لذكرايَ حالي

بسجستانَ خادِمُ الكتاب

What preoccupied me was remembering my state

Rather, what startled me when I remembered was my own state,

In prison, the servant of the book.

In Sijistan, working as a mere servant of the book,

قلّ عَنّي عَناءُ عَقلي وَديني

وَدُخولي في العلم من كُلِّ باب

Stop blaming my mind and religion

Of little avail to me was the exertion of my intellect and faith,

And my pursuit of knowledge through every door.

And my entry into knowledge through every door;

أَدركتَني وَذاكَ أَول دأبي

بسجستان حرفةُ الآداب

You knew me when that was my first pursuit

It overtook me—and such was my fate from the start—

In prison, the craft of literature.

In Sijistan: the trade of literature.