1. No, not the soft cheeks or the wine's sweet flush,
Make me envious of you, though others hush;

2. I dream of you while others' dreams diffuse
Their idle fantasies with vacant words.

3. My eyes delight, while agony imbues
My heart with fire that fiercely burns.

4. Ask not what makes my streaming tears diffuse
Down my cheeks - the tear itself confers!

5. Each day you terrify an untroubled heart
With beauty ever new, perfection unsurpassed!

6. How excellent your beauty, that love's smart
Should thus commence, and be confirmed at last!

7. A face so lovely that all beauty's trace
Is summed in it, as sins in one repentant tear.

8. A lord whose praise is worship and solace,
Like glorifying God in prayer sincere!

9. An imam whom all creatures venerate
For his perfection, between standing and bowed knee.

10. His only fault - the favors he donations make
Serve to enslave the free, and set the slave less free!

11. His eloquence exhales its subtle fire
Far from all chill obscurity aloft;

12. Each ode that sings his name tunes lyre on lyre
Above the branch, and carols sweet and soft.

13. Each poem was composed at his desire
Concerning a beloved, or Al-Walid's noble head.

14. He wrote uniquely of his words' attire,
By the trust of peoples, and the rightly led!

15. His lines marched rank on rank, protected concentration
Spearmen marched from his writing, with their banners bound.

16. When his pen bares itself, lo! its articulation -
Like soldiers' talk when ranks of war surround.

17. O brother of nobility, your habitation
Still teems with bounty and assembled throngs!

18. The age turned, through you, to a garden, vegetation
Resplendent, so live on earth immortal long!

19. Had Abdul Hamid sung your highest acclamation,
His raptures heavenward would have winged their flight!

20. Each moment's favor turns your approbation
To verse, and Abdul Hamid lauds the noble sight!

21. Through you my hands have gained the celebration,
And my surmise bears fruit, and ends my poem's blight.

22. My thoughts' daughters once dead, now have animation
Through your abode of glory infinite!