أرق على أرق ومثلي يأرق

Insomnia upon insomnia, and one like me keeps vigil, while anguish mounts and a tear wells up.

The height of passionate yearning is to be as I see myself: a sleepless eye and a throbbing heart.

No lightning flashes or bird warbles, but I turn aside with a heart full of longing.

I have tasted enough of love's fire that the burning Ghaḍā woods would go out and grow weary of scorching.

I blamed those who love until I tasted it myself, and now I wonder how anyone who does not love can die.

I excused them and recognized my own fault when I taunted them, only to suffer what they suffered.

O sons of our ancestor, we belong to dwellings where the raven of separation forever croaks.

We weep over the world, yet there is no group whom the world ever brought together without scattering them.

Where are the mighty Chosroes, those who hoarded treasures that neither endured nor did they?

Every one of them whose army crowded out the space until he passed away, contained within a narrow grave.

Silent when called, as if they never knew that speech was once entirely theirs to use.

Death is certain and souls are precious; only the fool remains deceived by what he possesses.

Man hopes while life is sweet, while gray hair brings gravity and youth brings recklessness.

Indeed I wept for my youth while my locks were still black and my face still retained its luster.

Fearing its loss before the day of its parting, until I almost choked on the water of my own eyes.

As for the sons of Aws ibn Ma'n ibn al-Riḍā, they are the mightiest to whom camels are driven.

I declared God's greatness around their dwellings when they appeared, like suns where no east exists.

And I marveled at a land where the cloud of their palms looms above, yet its stones bear no green.

Fragrances waft from their sweet praise, inhaled in every single place.

Musk-scented breezes, except that they are wild, refusing to scatter their scent upon anyone else.

O you who seek the like of Muhammad in our age, do not burden us with the pursuit of the unattainable.

The Compassionate never created the like of Muhammad, and my guess is He never will.

O you who bestow the greatest gifts, while I treat my acceptance of them almost as an act of charity toward him.

Pour down upon me the heavy clouds of your generosity, and look upon me with a mercy that keeps me from drowning.

A scoundrel lied who said in his ignorance that the noble have died while you live and are provided for.