1. O you who forget my covenant though I do not forget,
People, if they blame you, are still people.

2. My passion for you has become clear reproach,
So my tears flow immeasurably.

3. Alas, my tears clothe my body with grief
And hasten to me with cups of anxiety.

4. The critic, seeing them flow, said:
There is no harm in waiting a while.

5. Hush, o critic, and do not increase
The fire of sorrow with repeated breaths.

6. It is an old custom in love -
Those before me lived it and went to their graves.

7. I clung to the cord of passion and followed it
And built over a foundation with poles.

8. The lightning's gleam does no harm
If it relates the talk of clouds about al-'Abbas.

9. Lightning in the Levant for him is a Nile of tears
That flows from the mention of the celestial abodes.

10. Watering Egypt with inhabited dwellings
With stars on the horizon or wild deer.

11. And a sacrifice for it from a land -
how many flocks scattered there,

12. Where the tears' caravans have abodes.
A land whose long nights I have kept vigil in,

13. and whose love has delighted my eye and head.
Who can I have it with when fate is unkind,

14. Troubled, and the days show no sympathy?
My eye lights upon a friendly gazelle

15. By the Nile, not an ox in the marshlands.
Life is sweet as long as the sides

16. of every waving tent visit me.
Then that time passed and nothing remains

17. of its adornments for me but obsession.
Though after it tragedies arise for me

18. And others take its fortune and weddings.
They are fortunes, so live by them and do not say

19. "My mind, I live by it and my feelings."
The hidden things of matters became clear to my thoughts

20. And the affairs of this fortune wearing finery.
I congratulated your fortune, O Damascus, for a ruler

21. In whom hope is safe from loss.
The supreme judge - and it is a sublime position -

22. has purified it of impurities with his justice.
He whose house hope has revolved around calling

23. the proud to dew and firmness of purpose.
A lineage from the Helpers adorned its heaven -

24. From his children, a guard of guards.
If two suns were to rise, the radiance

25. of the dawn in its veils would be like his rising.
Blameless in prophetic character,

26. with breaths of musk.
Keeping the Law whether a horseman

27. or sitting in judgment among men.
They crossed over, and their pride at reaching him

28. amazed with excellent wordplay.
The wearer of piety, loftiness, and noble acts -

29. So look to him for superiority in merit as a garment.
Delighting the people - and for him

30. no judgment is delayed save accounts of insolvency.
Hastening fair judgment without bargaining

31. like one dividing fifths in tenths.
Renewing the knowledge for which

32. students' pens had dried.
He came to Syria and the hands of divine aid shone,

33. And the affairs of justice flowed with the balance.
The rulings appeared like a brilliant midday sun

34. And the days' mercy obeyed after obstinacy.
In his governance they were immune to critics -

35. Words shining like the lamp's light.
The words of enemies pass over him

36. Like winds over a firmly rooted acacia.
With schools wherein the sciences are adorned

37. And generosity has hidden the sons of Mirdas.
Between the elite and examination of its essence,

38. What similarity between an Egyptian and a broker?
With his hand the rightly guided pen -

39. on the day of bounty and science on parchment -
Writes lines affirming the precedence of his merit