In Praise of Shams al-Din of Khwarazm

Generous one whose foundation of power stands higher than the peak of the mighty heavens, Among the generous you hold the same honor that souls hold over lifeless bodies for me. As long as the cloud of your generosity keeps weeping, the field of my hope keeps laughing in bloom. The cold has grown so fierce that the breath in your nose rasps like a file. The sun, that candle of the sky, is weak and dim, like the lantern of a thief. The day, short like me from the cold, is barely half of what it used to be. Spit freezes in people's mouths; from the icy breath it turns to a block of ice. The bones in my body chatter from shivering, clacking like my teeth. Whoever owns a fur coat and woolens holds his head high like a wealthy lord. In this hair-splitting frost, cotton wadding is as useless as wool laid against an anvil. Warding off cold by a hair's breadth, that is what tells the wise apart from the fool. My chin trembles until every hair upon it shakes. Shine a sun of generosity on me, for in this cold my own skin has become my prison.