1. How shall I excuse my hoary locks to the censurers?
Though it grieves me that they should say old age has gripped me,

2. Had not the antics of youth distracted my purpose,
I'd not have felt how verse has become so hard.

3. A passion which was white has now that I espy it,
Fled into the head of the lad and become horror.

4. I feel the whitening hairs sprouting in me
As though set in my parting like needles fixed.

5. When you see greyness that you disavow
Know that it is but the trace left by sorrow's glow.

6. Hatim remains with a blemish on the cheek of love,
Like Maymun, his glance marred by estrangement's brand.

7. When he breathes deep his sigh shows his sadness,
Equity itself would almost melt and trickle away.

8. Your glances have left the shore of ardour, urged on
By the notebook wherein he records all that passed between.

9. In his breast the heart of love faintly flutters
As the dove when her glances and the helps are lacking.

10. White, like gazelles, who arouse a passion
In the heart whene'er the sight of them is caught.

11. Or bashfully they glance with their glances, while from them
The eyelids excuse what you reproached and the wine.

12. Lovely they gleam, in everything about them
Night midst its sable mantles holds a moon.

13. In the litters glimpsed in the dark, yearning
Binds them; glances and assignations quite done.

14. Under each thin veil clearly seen, a line
Of loveliness, from which gloom and night deter you.

15. O their beauty on nights of union granted us,
And days of joy on the island bestowed!

16. When they came to us in consent enwrapped
In them we knew, without end, sleepless care.

17. It descends in rivers where together we meet,
Fruitful converse and talk in the soft night hours,

18. Where singers lull the rose with song,
And amongst the maidens decency is put off.

19. A life of ease it feeds us in its gaiety
With union, and from the beloved's ways, pearls.

20. Has the time come for lovers to draw near their loves?
Or is the time of desolation and long suffering?

21. A little reproof would suffice, if I could reprove,
Or hoariness deter, if I could but chide.

22. I've had my fill of youth's days, and there remains
Naught of the wantonness of youth or any trace.

23. I yearn now for the lovely settlement parcelled out
Between consent and refusal, passion and flight.

24. And the warblings of the singers please me when
At the riotous party, where are lute and strings.

25. I initiate the pleasance, attended by
Fair faced noble lords, a garden's fairest flowers.

26. I teach it to quaff from a long-spouted cup, which,
When you splash it with water, sparks from it burst.

27. Often I've spent a night whose stars disappeared
Into sickness, while for the darkness motes condensed.

28. And we are moist with dew from the zephyr's breath
When the trees bend with moisture their boughs towards us.

29. Every heavy headed one forgets his care;
The cup of destiny makes him bow down drunken.

30. I call him but he answers me not,
His eyelid numb with sleep and crumbling.

31. In a garden of the summertide, made up,
Its freshness the garden's adornment and its flowers,

32. Wherein the zephyr pants, begins to show off,
Struts and prances; amongst them all are flirts,

33. As though upon me an air of sweetness,
And brightness, gaiety and loveliness of him.

34. When Abul Qasim the Fortunate appears to us
All other beauty beside seems paltry and small.

35. Open handed, ample armed, smiling
With favours, burdens of excellence and plenty.

36. Resolute of purpose, active for chances
To show not cowardice, no weakling of arm.

37. He is flanked like forest lions, on his right
A brave pack, enduring on the day of wrath.

38. Over them are cloaks of honour, immaculate white,
Pure stains on which no mud has clung.

39. Their striving is ever for the means to ascend;
Ambitious, with no baseness their spirits stirs.

40. By his glory the greatest are confused,
And by it the pulpits, crowns and walls delighted.

41. Good fortune is yours in the heights, O Banu Umar,
What Umar built up for you in his glory!

42. I swear by the House all revered, circumambulated
By a scanty clad pilgrim, enacting the rites.

43. Men portioned in lots of fortunes, but to me
The bounty of Abu'l Qasim the Excellent and the Settled.

44. Today the Azd have shown me kindnesses
Such as Rabia nor Mudar displayed.

45. Had it not been for Nawal's sons including us
We'd not have known what rain causes to grow.

46. They stretched to us goblets of dew, cooled by
Its shade, and from it fruits came to us.

47. Good fortune and favour are yours, you were suckled
On flowing wish‐milk, while for foes is sorrow.