1. They endured the blossoms of beauty’s gardens,
So the tears of lovers were sent in perfidy.

2. And they stirred on a day of reunions among our nightingales
When they inclined the branches of bosoms.

3. Bedouins halted with their gazelles from their cheeks,
Narcissi and from bodies, bliss.

4. They unpacked their bags, and their steeds neighed,
Until they established, with the deer, a union.

5. I had not known before meeting them
That I thought eyelids to be from swords.

6. Nor had I imagined the meaning of magic through them
Until the hair's plait turned into a snake.

7. They related the night told what its wine embraced
Until they elucidated and lo the horizons became clear.

8. Whence does night possess intoxicated temples
Which make souls swoon yet revive them at times?

9. And whence does the full moon have awakening glances
Which set fires in people's passions?

10. We were and had a livelihood but there followed us
Yearning so oh would that we never were nor existed!

11. O settlers of the valley, do not blame your changes
For here are my tears that have taken on hues.

12. I seek God's forgiveness - has loyalty and dew left
And in people is the perfection of our faith, our master?

13. Filling the eye with good tidings and the palms with radiance
And the heart with love and hearing with elocution.

14. And the bestower of money measuring by his plenty
And the conveyor of eulogies taking rhythms.

15. He surpassed the generous in extending to their time
So he was a mark while the people were signs.

16. And he excelled over the excellence of forefathers who passed away
So he was the opening while the people were the Qur’an.

17. If the people of glory imagined his ambition
They bowed to its glory blind and sighted.

18. It honored ambitions whose resolves matured
So he left what they transmitted about Ma'n of Shiban.

19. He protected the sanctuary with armies from his fine steeds
When the pens wrote less than little.

20. And he ascended ranks of nobles with a station
Which, when thirsty, meets pouring rainclouds.

21. That one who increased elucidation from his early days
When the children took fright for the structure.

22. It is as though his right hand's rest and fingers
Were a sea sending gulfs to the perfectly healthy.

23. O you whom I aim for riding the stars of fortune
While people do not ride to you ostrich-mounted.

24. Thanks for your blessings. If the speech of a clod
Thanked, the valley's slopes and leaves would bow.

25. I asked the dew of your palm to rain favor
And I did not ask the dew of your palm for a flood.

26. So restrain your gifts from me, for I am a man
Who fears oppression upon myself and aggression.

27. And close your havens though they offer their gardens
For my contentment is gardens and beatitude.

28. I floated my poetry over all poetry
Until I made for my poetry through you a collection.

29. And my words became dear and I did not intend by its visitor
Except the precious one and did not expend it freely.

30. My enviers may be many and I bequeathed them
Hypocrisy in speech within your assembly and woes.

31. So have mercy on my enemies for I pitied them
From what I see from them in Damascus, perplexed.

32. It laments ordeal though my mind does not heed it
By God, nothing but the most wretched heart despairs.

33. Forever humiliate the malicious whom worries
Have stilled and who ascend in the world gloriously.

34. I never feared in praise a sin I would commit
For in praising you is redemption and forgiveness.