1. Your eyes overflowing with tears make me radiant
As radiant as a gazelle with beautiful eyes

2. O you who command the limbs with your beauty
Enslaving hearts and releasing tears

3. My eyes have shed copious tears for you
Any eye that beholds your beauty overflows

4. Yet I fear your coquetry though you know not
That I yearn for your generosity in love

5. I swear by Him who made anguish for you a delight
And tears a relief for lovers besotted and transfixed

6. Lovers' agony is real wealth and he who
Wastes his life upon you is truly blessed

7. My share of your love is abundant
And the arrows of your spellbinding glances assail me

8. Those who censure my tears for you are astonished
By this open-handed one compassionately giving alms

9. With a cup tasting of you I have drunk deep
To the fury of censurers who have not tasted

10. From your tenderness I have plucked a branch in bloom
Garlanded in trinkets, burgeoning and leafing

11. And I have read in your cheek, after contemplation
A line wherein hearts' passion remains suspended

12. And I have gained from your eyelids what the world
Envied my fortune for, a scarce livelihood

13. And I have delighted in novel pleasures
And dressed myself in the gossamer of contentment

14. On a night of joys with a crescent for its new moon
Plying between the boon companions like a little skiff

15. Oh, to have a night wherein we sell our worries
But we do not part except with mutual consent

16. Where the youth rush joyfully to merriment
Restless, seeking amusement and gaiety

17. The cup-bearer pays heed to the prime of youth
Most inclined towards joy and vivacity

18. It gladdens me that the wine-pourer hastens the cups
Towards me, and my goblet is resplendent

19. Sing merrily with your cup, my boon companion
For my eyelids distil the subtlest, choicest wine

20. The thrill of youth has passed and the beloved departed
Leaving me sleepless as before, like others wakeful

21. As if my eyes were my sole comfort and rest
Having sworn never to close again

22. The finest companionship was born, but I did not ask
If the heavy rainclouds on the horizon arose

23. If the generous had emissaries
Mohammed would be the last and the first among them

24. A king who made his protection an obligation
His feats of generosity setting and rising

25. Neither harming others, his actions manifest
Seeking only repute, his lineage noble and pure

26. From a clan enhancing the fortune of nobility
On the day they vied in superiority, they had but to fear

27. The star diminishing their renown, so let them descend
The star limiting their bounds, so let them rise higher

28. If they boast of their ancestors, they have not deflected
Or outstripped with their latest deeds, they have not caught up

29. Were their past to perish based on the laws of destruction
It would be as if their best qualities remained

30. The land is vast in the expanse of their conquests
In his days, justice was made secure

31. Hearts overflowing with devotion inspired awe
The heart preceded the eye in lowering its gaze before him

32. It was as if the postures of standing before him
Were like the imposed poll tax paid by non-Muslims

33. Walking the path of his ancestors’ ways
The wilderness hoping for his two conditions and separating

34. No shortcoming in him but ambitions to which
The stars fell short while his continued to soar

35. An incessant stream of delegates complained until
The very breeze protested his extreme kindness

36. Lavish when his gathering was splendid
And brave when armies were arrayed

37. He is met with awe and gentility
Like a sword, deadly in its flash yet elegant

38. You can see him shining among the glittering stars
Like the moon amidst the glowing celestial orbs

39. When quiet, between the weapons as if he were
A pond stirred, glinting, shimmering

40. The birds and wild beasts approach
From above and below thronging visitors crowd

41. O perfect King fulfilling his duties
You are protected from an envious evil eye

42. And you remain for the poet to reap his livelihood
An incurring no expense in your land

43. You reminded us of the era of al-Mu'ayyad though he
Inhabits the weeping clouds sighing and moaning

44. They will test the fringes of his verdant garden
Its sleeves unfurled by the breeze bursting open

45. Your stature matches his, and your nature his nature
So revel in this garb of unmatched praise

46. And celebrate a feast day scarcely able to contain
Its joy at meeting you, breaking the fast, outpacing

47. A wondrous ode like a garden, except that
It reveals itself to the hearing and captivates the mind

48. I strung it together like a necklace the like of which
In prosody was donned by the scattered pearls of al-Walid

49. And I recited the letter “Qaf” as a charm protecting it
From glances, concerned, wanting to spare it

50. I have no special merit therein but your sea hurls forth
Pearls of attributes saying to mankind: “Be generous!”

51. The birds frequenting your home have taken wing and soared
To the two horizons, the wings of fame fluttering

52. Through you I learned the art of verse
Which I would not have embraced had it not been for you

53. My allegiance is to you for your equal
In every incident has a place in eternity