لما رأيتُ منازلَ الجوزاءِ

خفيتْ عليَّ حقائق الأنباء

When I saw the houses of Jawzā',

The realities of the news were hidden from me.

وعلمتُ أنَّ الله يحجبُ عبدَه

عن ذاتِه لتحقق الأنساء

And I knew that God veils His servant

From His essence to actualize intimacy.

إن الدليلَ مقابلُ مدلولِه

حكم التقابلِ بنفسه الإنشاء

Indeed, evidence is opposite to the evidenced -

This opposites' ruling inheres creation.

انظر إلى أسمائه الحسنى تجد

أعياننا من حضرةِ الأسماء

Look to His beautiful names, you find

Our entities from the presence of names.

فإذا بدا بالوجه أظهرَ كوننا

بالنسخةِ المشهودة الغَرَّاء

So when He appeared through the face, He showed our being

In the witnessed copy, gleaming.

زلنا عن الأمثالِ لا بل ضربها

لله إذ كنا من الجهلاء

We slipped from examples—no, He struck them

For God, when we were among the ignorant.

أين الذراعُ وهقعةٌ وتحيةٌ

من فرضٍ قدر فوقهم مُتنائي

Where are the forearm and prostration and greeting

From an ordained duty above the towering?

في أطلس ما فيه نجمٌ ثابتٌ

يبدو يشاهد نوره للرائي

In an atlas where no fixed star appears,

Its light seems and is seen by the beholder.

وله الرطوبةُ والحرارة إذْ له

طبعُ الحياةِ وسرُّه في الماء

And to Him belong moisture and heat, for to Him belongs

The nature of life and its secret in water.

عصرُ الشبابِ له وليس لكونه

في الرتبة العلياءِ برجُ هواء

The age of youth is His, not because His constellation

Is in the highest station, the House of Air.

والدالي والميزانُ أمثالٌ له

فالحكمُ مختلفٌ بغيرِ مِراء

The Bucket and the Scales are examples of Him.

So judgment differs without contention.

حكم المنازلِ قد تخالفُ طبعه

كيفَ الشفاءُ وفيه عينُ الداء

The judgment of the houses may oppose His nature—

How healing, while in it lies the eye of sickness?

حار المكاشف في الدجى خياله

مثل المفكر إذ هما بسواء

The mystic wandered confusedly in the darkness,

Like the thinker when both are equal.

الأمر أعظم أن يحاط بكنهه

ومع النَّزاهة جاء بالأنواء

The matter is greatest that its essence be encompassed

And with sincerity came with tidings.

حرنا وحار العقل في تحصيله

إذ ليس منحصراً على استيفاء

We were perplexed, and the mind was confused in attaining it,

Since it cannot be limited to enumeration.

لولا ثبوتُ المنع قلتُ بجودِه

المنعُ يُذهبُ رتبةَ الكرماء

Had the impossibility of limitation not been proven, I would have said, by His generosity,

"Limitation removes the rank of generous ones."

لا تفرحنَّ بما ترى من شَاهدٍ

يبدو لعينِك عند كشفِ غِطاء

Do not rejoice in what you see of a witness

That appears to your eye when a cover is unveiled.

من شانه المكر الذي قد قاله

في محكمِ الآياتِ والأنباء

It is His way to use that deceit which

He has stated in the decisive verses and news.

القصد في علمِ الأمور كما جَرَتْ

ما القصد في حَمَل ولا جَوزاءِ

The aim in the knowledge of matters is as

The aim in bearing neither crow nor dove.

إن الطبيعة كالعروسِ إذا انجلتْ

والبعلُ من تدريه بالإيماء

Indeed, nature is like a bride when she adorns herself,

And the groom—who makes her gestures to him?

عنها تولدتِ الجسومُ بأسرها

وتعاقبَ الإصباحُ والإمساء

From her originated all bodies altogether,

And morning and evening alternate.

فهي الأميمة للكثيفِ وروحُه

وهو لها للنشء كالأبناء

So she is the wet nurse of the dense and its spirit,

And it is to her, for procreation, like sons.

وهم الشقائقُ يُنسَبون إليهما

بالفعلِ لا بالتحامِ النائي

And they are the anemones attributed to them

Through action, not through the distant conjunction.

مَن دانَ بالإحصاء دانَ بكلِّ ما

دلَّت عليه حقائقُ الإحصاءِ

Whoever believes in enumeration believes in all

To which the realities of enumeration point.

لا تلق ألواحاً تضمن رحمته

وادفع بهن شماتة الأعداء

Do not receive tablets containing His mercy

And repel with them the gloating of enemies.

واسلك بنا النهجَ القويمَ ملبياً

صوتَ المنادي عند كلِّ نهداء

And make me follow the straight path, answering

The voice of every caller at each slope.

هو حاجب البابِ الذي خضعتْ له

غلبُ الرقابِ وآمرُ الأمراء

He is the veiler of the door to which

The necks of the elite bowed, commander of commanders.