1. If you wish to enjoy refined poetry
Eloquent, natural, free of affectation

2. Flowing smoothly, sweetly gentle
In subtle style, free of coercion

3. Mimicking the harmony of water as it flows down
Drunk in by good taste, and it suffices

4. Beyond books of earlier masters, like well-watered gardens
So this is a weaving of rhetoric

5. Embroidered by the moon that does not hide
We say, Al-Nawala Effendi, one who is spoken of

6. The wise heart listens to him and holds him in esteem
So whoever wishes to compose poetry follows his path

7. And flows like his beautiful flow and pursues it
Is not he who lit up and winked with his lightening

8. A young man chosen by every valiant and selected
A gentle, friendly, virtuous man except

9. He is an adept, well-versed, full of refinement
And I am not one who aimed to enumerate his traits

10. But with some of his qualities I suffice