1. Welcome, O specter, upon the barren land furtively creeping,
As dawn in its magic like a mouth in smiling,

2. And the star in the western horizon waning,
Like a flame fallen from a kindled hand.

3. Oh, wonderful is the time of the barren land, a time
Where all its nights are a wedding night,

4. And wonderful is living with a gazelle, if she appeared
To the moon, though veiled, or to a branch, untouched.

5. She has a cheek like the salt in a gazelle,
Yet the gazelle has not her charm.

6. Guarded by the rays of white light gathered together
And the light of those cheeks is a sign of protection.

7. My heart pursues her glances, and how strange
The pursuit of the hunted in the tracks of a predator.

8. Would that the virgins were within sight of her beauties
Even if bent with blindness, their eyes stopped up in muteness.

9. Though I have hung my love around my heart,
I am perplexed, confused in the light and darkness.

10. A ship that does not carry me to one who is stingy –
Indeed a ship does not travel on dry land.

11. It brings me to the gate of Ibn Ayyoub when darkened
By the sorrows of misfortunes, as brought to a flint for light.

12. The bestower whose gift is shining pearls
So his bounty is never spurned by a grasping hand.

13. The miser who hoards in life and dwells in it
With his open hands raised water to the impure.

14. Al-Mu’ayyad erased the destitution of the needy, so
His bounty can barely be grasped by one in despair.

15. People felt at ease with his bounty, so they reported
About Malik the news of the most high and of Anas.

16. A king whose courses are measured by his generosity
When the camel loads of the house are measured by a horse.

17. His mornings end in shining faces
When he finishes with the people of the world in frowning.

18. Victorious in ancestral glory, walking
In his gentle nature or his ferocious war.

19. He hides pearls and dinars of prayers thereby
Nearly striking the ears with ringing.

20. He spreads knowledge without controversy in interpretation
When he narrates it, or without confusion in meaning.

21. He fulfills command with guided opinions
That proceed and push back the difficulties of events.

22. Sometimes being like a lion, and at times
Being like the strikes of a lion, like a shield.

23. If the horizon some day took on the blessings of his sunrise,
No star would be heard among the unlucky.

24. If the sorrows of the earth gained his comfort,
No rugged place would remain on earth unsmoothed.

25. You who gave my people their most excellent carpenter,
I boast to the gathering of the most high a secret boast.

26. Renewing for me in his praises a lineage
Purer than a lineage in the buried earth.

27. My best reports of him and most ingratitude to him
Until I clung to the rope of the reaper’s sickle.

28. Pure of tent, his character does not lean
To boredom or fold to vileness.

29. I never sensed the lightning of his bounty and it disappointed me,
Nor relied on his kindness and he forgot me.

30. That is the most high for Ibn Hamdan in Aleppo
And for Ibn ‘Ammar, who makes a din in Tripoli.

31. It does not harm me if they come to power while he remains hopeful,
Though the promise of the returning was disgraced and did not disgrace.

32. O son of the first kings, take her as a praised bride –
Egyptian in upbringing, western in spirit.

33. God is great! He who praises you crafted the truth,
As if he spoke on behalf of the Holy Presence.