أَلَستَ أَبا حَفصٍ هُديتَ مُخَبِّري

أَفي الحَقِّ أَن أُقصى وَيُدنى ابنُ أسلَما

Will you not, Abu Hafs—may you be guided—tell me:

Is it right that I be kept far off while Ibn Aslama is brought near?

أَلا صِلَةُ الأَرحامِ أَدنى إِلى التُقى

وَأَظهَرُ في أَكفائِهِ لَو تَكَرَّما

Is not maintaining the bonds of kinship closer to piety,

and more evident among his peers, were he to act nobly?

فَما تَرَكَ الصُنعُ الَّذي قَد صَنَعتَهُ

وَلا الغَيظُ مِنّي لَيسَ جلداً وَأَعظُما

The deed that you have done has left—

nor has my anger—anything of me but skin and bones.

وَكُنّا ذَوي قُربى لَدَيكَ فَأَصبَحَت

قَرابَتُنا ثَدياً أَجَدَّ مُصَرَّما

We were kinsmen close to you, but then

our kinship became a breast newly cut off.

وَكُنت وَما أَمَّلتُ مِنكَ كَبارِقٍ

لَوى قَطرَهُ مِن بَعدِ ما كانَ غَيَّما

You—and all I had hoped from you—were like a lightning cloud

that withheld its rain after it had grown cloud-laden.

وَقَد كُنتَ أرجَى الناسِ عِندِي مَوَدَّةً

لَيالِيَ كَانَ الظَّنُّ غَيباً مُرَجَّما

Yet to me you had been the most promising of all people in affection,

in nights when expectation was an unseen thing, merely guessed at.

أَعُدُّكَ حِرزاً إِن جَنَيتُ ظُلامَةً

وَمالاً ثَرِيّاً حينَ أَحمِلُ مَغرَما

I counted you a stronghold if I committed a wrong,

and abundant wealth whenever I had to bear a debt.

تَدارَك بِعُتبَى عاتِباً ذا قَرابَةٍ

طَوَى الغَيظ لَم يَفتَح بِسُخطٍ لَهُ فَما

Set matters right, by restoring favor, with a reproachful kinsman

who has folded away his anger and never opened his mouth in wrath.