1. I shot my longing arrow towards you, O Shauqi
A moment of tranquility among moments of calm

2. I pledged my sleep to my lover’s gaze
When I borrowed health from him for my ailments

3. I ransom what I used to conceal of my passion
Until the bloom on my cheeks betrayed it with flags

4. The beloved forbade union, how much desire
Assailed me, and how many dreams opposed me

5. My glances did injustice to his cheeks, wounding them
Yet the beauty of his cheeks is darkness upon darkness

6. And I wore not from my tears a discarded garment
Except that his face was adorned with my blood like flags

7. I wish my hair and heart were tested regarding him
What blame is on my love and infatuation for him

8. Do not fear a blamer who comes to reproach me
O you who deprived me of dreams and imaginings in love

9. By the right of your eyes I have no hearing for “an eye” or “a hand” or “a lam”*
Nor do I have thoughts of sun or moon except my forehead in my morn and night

10. Watering a pact of intimacy that used to support me
With its bright face, apart from the humans, son of Bissam

11. Where the breeze drags its train in rapture
And the flowers dance in wonder, shaking their sleeves

12. And the river is a composition, across which the wind traces its lines
And the drops follow what it has inscribed in ambiguities

13. And the cup is in the hand of its cupbearer, illustrated
Shining around it the light of Bohram

14. It was saddled and returned to worries, muzzled
Thus it is the slave-camel, saddled and muzzled

15. I revived life through it, growing from its beauties
What neither the copyist nor the sleeper can enumerate

16. And I disclosed its cup while the sun was not disclosed
Nor did the East take a sip from it in a goblet

17. Months of union like hours have expired
With the one I loved, and years like days

18. They turned as if I had been with them for a year
Then days broke forth for me like years

19. Shaken by the hand of time, turbulent
As if the days had divined my fate with arrows

20. My state made the sweetness of life forbidden to me
As if the sweetness of my life were the ihram garments

21. Such is destiny, persisting ahead
And talks have dangerous twists

22. Since my state has been changed once
I will change it to depart from the resolve of ambitions

23. Many blame my determination and departure
To the sanctuary of Egypt, complaining of the harshness of Syria

24. She said: “You have children behind you.” I said to her:
“Yes, and my bliss is Ibn Fadlillah ahead of me.”

25. Were it not for Ibn Fadlillah, the ships of al-‘Is
Would not have surpassed the ships of al-Fal al-Tami

26. For the one whose praise assembles glory
And clarifies generosity among them after grasp

27. Lord of sovereignty, of inheritance and gains
What an essence of diverse types and kinds!

28. Block, O ‘Ali ibn Yahya, however you wish, for none
In your prized branch and origin bears blame

29. And raise to ‘Umar the support of your house, in
Virtue, distinction, precedence and boldness

30. A house aspiring to the rank of al-Faruq
So the Supreme inscribed it with the sublime rank

31. Its good order was perfected until its pride was completed
Thus to purity he aspires and perfection

32. A name whose letters of glory are clear
And every glory but yours is a letter of merger

33. If the stars of the horizon sought to reach you
The steps of great eagles would not attain your feet's dust

34. Whether at the start of the state or its end
May God grant you success in strengthening Islam

35. Either with the spears of pens you have known
To be fit for setting limits, or with spears of lances

36. You protect the path of guidance, its beginning and end
And rise with favor and coercion

37. Among you is ‘Ali, nurtured for the Sublime by ‘Umar
So excellent are the fruits of a growing plant

38. A voice that inspired and protected a gifted king
Ransomed by people with loftiness and baseness

39. Improver of manners and morals, whose concord
The tribes of virtue seek, whether in zeal or moderation

40. For the foremost that the praiser bound his life
He distinguished him from the masses saved intact

41. No flaw in him but the loftiness of his state
Above any rank of shame and confusion you specify

42. His perception knows the secrets of our souls
Either with a penetrating mind or inspiration

43. If the sea had a bit of his generosity
It would toss on the roads a scattering pearl

44. Flowing are his life and the oceans of the land, on a day of dew
And a day of knowledge, so it revealed the yields of the gatherer

45. The sea foams in rage that stirs it
And lightning laughs at the powerlessness of the writhing snake

46. Justice closes the eyelid of the sword in calm
After it had been an eyelid whose tears were bloody

47. As for kings, his decisive eloquence has enriched their realms,
Dispensing with the need for a judging arbitrator

48. His utterance taught the listening ear its eloquence
Praise poetry to him is firm in composition

49. If you mixed liquor flagons with it
It would not return the sound of pure wine

50. O eminent one, if the eye of al-‘Imad glanced at it
It would flutter in awe, its lightning being Syrian

51. Your praise eclipsed ‘Abd al-Rahim, so do not
Aspire for his stars, perceptions of minds

52. Your transcending poetry routed his far-reaching verse
When you brandished spears like standards

53. To inform the King in your support about a pen
That protected realms from the corruption of a transgressor

54. Sharper than a thousand in the fist that Force
Drains from the letter Noon, and more refusing harm on the day of panic than the letter Lam**

55. Comparison falls short in describing it on the day of grant
While people are between longing and enjoyment

56. An inheritance for you, O son of early forerunners, is loftiness
In bestowing bounty or relieving pains

57. As if the people of distinction were a body whose concern is you
And you are the right eye in important matters

58. If in time you have fulfilled its last part
Then you are the holiday that fulfills the year’s end

59. Thanks for eras of justice that have slumbered through you
The eyes of the public are having sweet dreams

60. And stars that served your elevation, so they are
Good maidservants that are called attendants

61. I have declared, O keeper of secrets, good tidings, after
Withholding what was feared of injustice and darkness

62. And you supported us in praise, allurements
To virtue, possessing aid and inspiration

63. Take them, the miracle of interwoven threads
With the unmatched essence of the organizing pearl

64. Egyptian, among the houses of merit she has not known
Among them the association of a butcher or bath-keeper***

65. You, who saved me from the hand of my annihilation
And erased with righteousness my extermination

66. So live forever, no terminating the cause
Of what you have untied, nor untying of what you have tied

67. And blood and favours you have filled
My six directions with glory and grace

68. Recompenses from my right and left, above
And below me, behind me and in front of me