1. He would not have gotten up were it not for your love, O slender and pliable sapling.
The young men weep and the inhabitants of the valleys disappear.

2. The ignorant foolishly ask the desert about its dwellers.
And the signs of spirits have been erased and covered up.

3. At times he holds back his tears, and at other times
The pangs of passion rouse them and they pour out.

4. A loved one who weeps when people sleep,
Disturbed by a memory that excites him from his festival.

5. His fantasies call up the specter of imagination, while
The authority of fate hides it from him with yearnings.

6. He raves with passion for moons upon slender palm trees
Swayed by darkness, with their clusters bending over.

7. The cheeks of every radiant beauty smile
Revealing dimples adorned with down and moles.

8. When she unveils, she shows you from her luminous cheek
A full moon, and when veiled, she appears as a crescent.

9. O sunbeam, love has distanced me,
So I wonder through what can I approach you.

10. If the fair-faced ones levy a charity tax on beauty,
Then I am the most wretched pauper.

11. With a love-crazed camel, constantly writhing,
Whose nobility contends with him in its loftiness.

12. On a night like the breadth of a tumultuous sea,
In which doubts arise and no guiding lights shine,

13. Dawn rose for me bearing a standard
That reached the furthest horizon where ranks fall short.

14. The sweet stream, the spacious grove,
The realization of wishes, settlements and fertile plain,

15. In the shade of sparkling white, from which the clouds
Are watered, then loom, and by which the dog is healed.

16. Independent in what wears out kings,
And independent for us is the world when it gives.

17. Resolute, honored by his forbearance when
The rage of the eminent subsides.

18. A lover of the heights, for whom, at every
Level, there is a virgin who may be proposed to in marriage.

19. Pure in conscience, pleasing in intimacy,
Praiseworthy in deeds - speeches adorned with his name.

20. He has hands that are resident and traveling,
And their goodness neither excludes foreigner nor Arab.

21. A lord - when the eminent boast in an assembly -
Named by the highest of sciences and nobility.

22. If the night of calamity darkens, fatally engulfing,
His merit and courtesy shine brightly for him.

23. And if his hand waters the garden of paper,
You see a flooding river of wonders from it.

24. As if his breast is the endless ocean,
And from his pens pearl divers selecting the finest.

25. If he inclines to legal opinions, he is their master,
And if he gives generously, the clouds are ashamed of his munificence.

26. We have not seen an imam before seeing him
Who sees supererogatory acts as obligatory deeds.

27. The most dreadful thing is for a request to precede its attainment,
And the greatest sin is for any speck to remain.

28. He is distanced by his kindness and drawn
By his noble nature to the virtuous and pulls towards it.

29. Wakeful for glory, guarding the game of pride
That his forefathers hunted, from father to father.

30. From a family that greybeards have gained pride through,
So they are an eternal nobility for him when he claims descent.

31. A people you see glory moving amongst in lines of verse,
While wealth is hoarded and possessions seized.

32. Lions when they claim descent, clouds when they give generously,
Lions when they pounce, deadly when they are enraged.

33. If they one day set their mind on a frightful course,
You would see the pillars of Salma trembling in fear.

34. O companion, patron, minister - and one who
Claims descent to their lofty glories -

35. You were called "the Companion" in the radiant State,
Rightfully, though the ignorant thought it a title.

36. You clothed it in your overflowing glory, so there remained for it
A train trailing upon the shoulder of Canopus.

37. And how often you repelled hostility from it, to the rage
Of people whose livers burned with malice!

38. When its regiments abandoned defending it
In a momentous, dreadful event, the books rose to support it.

39. You multiplied them in Damascus while it was empty,
Though the horrible hordes were encamped upon it.

40. Regiments that made the wilderness shake
And filled the valleys and hills.

41. They are led by each youth of the Ayyubids
With resolute determination, no cowardice or turning back.

42. A lion whose claws are white from hunting gazelles,
And it has a dense forest of spears with swelling buds.

43. Until Damascus looked down upon a war
That boded ill in its outcome and danger.

44. You endowed it with sincere resolve from you, so there submitted to it
The beasts of India and the smooth-sided thieves.

45. Thus your view for it was a standard raised up
High with victory, and the banners and misfortunes submitted.

46. The steadiest of them in grit and the wisest
In opinion remained, and the most resolute in arms was their flight.

47. And they had thought the disasters of Egypt would befall them
And good fortune would overtake them in turn.

48. So they lost heart, and the utmost their leader
Hoped from God was that Aleppo would remain for him.

49. A planning superior to vicissitudes,
A heart that does not spend the night trembling with anxiety over calamity.

50. When the demons of rebellion bare their faces,
His views pelt them with shooting stars.

51. A resolve by which God suppressed conflict before
Any spears were shaken or lances cast.

52. Had another sought reconciliation,
He would have been put to sleep by inadequacy and fatigue.

53. The garments of his bounty draped over me, so
The robes of childhood were returned to me in their beauty.

54. And I spent the night devoid of hopes while ties
Were established between me and the exalted through his door.

55. This is the praise - which has no defect -
No, nor did any falsehood mix into your glory.

56. A wondrous meaning and refined words,
Strange metaphors, all carefully chosen.

57. Not every piece of wood, when adorned,
Sinks into the ineloquence of the foreigner’s Arabic.

58. Seasoned warriors can witness war with double armor,
As can one whose only clothing is a tattered cloak.

59. So be safe, and may favorable things always
Continue upon you, for all days and eras to come.