1. O my nights, how many a night with poetry are like Layla,
And a night before it, bright like a glowing cheek.

2. Meeting and parting, so from the darkness take me,
To the light of life, and from the light to darkness.

3. You are but the time of life adorning,
With the cheek and poetry my morning and evening.

4. I ransom you from a blossom bright in beauty,
I have suffered from my reproachers in it screaming.

5. Woe to the censurers who see my Layla and hear from her,
Who do not hear the censure in her any obscene saying,

6. O Lord of the impaired sight, away from her charms,
And Lord of the deaf ear to obscenity, deafened,

7. And Lord of the specter reproaching me,
With the image of a chaste maiden clarifying a chaste cup.

8. So I slept overlooking the best of tents and its coffee,
Sweetened, which caused my members to sink in sleep.

9. An upright, virtuous phantom walked on the eye of the night,
So excellent was the righteous walking on water.

10. Then I awoke while the owner of the cheek abode,
Oblivious of my vigil and unaware of my drowsing,

11. Slender, as if never on the day we parted,
Save at a musical instrument among the tribe bleating.

12. Dead from love, but alive by the memory of youth
Among the living with every clan some talk repeating,

13. My streaming tears compose or my vitals wound,
Love has seared my heart with its kindling,

14. And tears have gushed in my night by my misery,
And passed is what passed of meeting I was healed by,

15. From the frustrating despair but after healing,
Days that lowered over their temples before like turning and returning.

16. She rolls her eye and cup for me, no wonder,
If I went mad for a black-eyed and yellow-eyed girl.

17. Until the gray hair of my head appeared I stopped
At the remains of the soul’s prohibitions shining white.

18. She who rolls the cup from me, I have an occupation,
From the pure cup of yours by my graying an irritation.

19. Gray hair is but specks in the eye and its inflammation
To me and the cool of injustice is clear water.

20. My life, the pure living in it has diminished for tidings,
And how not when it is of clay and of water.

21. But I only have in the world blessings,
Which almost restored the cleft of the distant boy.

22. And comfort encompassing the sublime with what it included,
The children of Adam with bounty and Eve.

23. The Judge of judges, when the world wearies of insight,
Squinting of eye, without the b, t and a.

24. And the elevated in rank, boasted of nothing but,
His feet, the r before the t and the b and a.

25. And the piercing mind in deceptions he sets up,
For every seeker of bounty a tempting temptation.

26. For the asker of generosity, a preoccupation from his youth,
And for the knowledge-seeker, preoccupations for juristic reasoning.

27. If his cultivation or gentleness touched a rock,
It would touch it in both states a thousand dociles.

28. Of a house of valid lineage I have preferred by it,
The glories of fathers and sons.

29. For the defense of the best of prophets zebras rose,
His helpers, and they substituted the best of tidings.

30. The family of winds, in speech and in generosity,
The family of winds, in help and in wailing,

31. Who speak clearly in vocabulary and melody,
Not to mention the eloquent purebred Arabs,

32. Draining their eyelids at dawn and clamor,
And filling our lids at nightfall,

33. They passed, and their sons shone after them like meteors,
Whose light effaces every darkness.

34. So from a crescent, and from a star, and from a moon,
In a horizon of might, glorification, and loftiness,

35. Until the sincere of religion, the morning guidance appeared,
Dictating, and his dictation from his intuitive mind,

36. Clarifying the fog, clarified by its brilliance, so we do not,
Miss a time of abundant virtue, clarified.

37. Dazzling, watering by its blessings and its rising,
Towards revival, a year of ease and adversity.

38. If he did not find us with a flow he endowed upon us with prayer,
A cloud ready over the years of dearth with prayer.

39. The knowledgeable is as knowledge disseminated,
The children of villages seeking and reciting him.

40. So Al-Shafi’i, if he compiled his pages,
He ransomed them with the faithful, their meanings and fathers.

41. And spent the night grasping the expanse within them,
And died in his skin after revival.

42. He provides by the paper from a king and from manuscripts,
To one who venerates him the worth of the notable.

43. For one whose hands are either a necklace of a bride,
For the saints, or fetters for enemies.

44. No fault in him but hastening his favors,
So how can the hoped-for be enjoyed after procrastination?

45. He meets you with good tidings after benevolence, smiling,
Like lightning after the stillness of clouds and pouring.

46. To stay the night praising him, for I have praised,
At the morning of humankind, Israel.

47. I wore his blessings like the garden blossomed,
With the overflowing of a hand like green rain.

48. And how can I not wear bounty glittering,
While the rain on its sides? Any will or desire!

49. And how can I not bring eulogies deemed amidst,
The script like songs from between melodies!

50. From you I learned the eloquent wording, versifying it
Into verses enthusing the minds of minds.

51. I have harvested from it sparks I do not conceal from you,
And concealing is not of my inclination.

52. Take them to you, my fresh praise, mantles,
The making of secrets but without refusal.

53. And live as you wish, whatever you wish praising,
You will be praised with the best house of bestowals.

54. From you I have attained the eloquent phrasing, versifying it,
Into a poetry that ravishes the minds of minds.

55. I have prepared from it sparks I do not withhold,
From your hearing, and withholding is not of my way.