1. Your imagination came to me as a harbinger of fate
So why should I be indebted again to fate?

2. Tomorrow your person will stand before my eyes
So I take precautions against the slanderer's sleepiness

3. By God, I do not close my eyelids for slumber
Rather, I cast them down before you as a veil

4. And who can I trust with that which my passion contains?
And if I aim at the enemies, who can I exonerate myself before?

5. And if a spark flies
From the fire of my heart unto the horizon by night, its ember returns it

6. I stay up late, the companion of a star, exhausted by yearning for you
Even if I do not deprive myself of aught but the wine of love

7. And my eyelids cast on me the spell of the veiled beloved
So by night they reveal to me from your phantom, a full moon

8. So I do not find respite while the night fulfils its oath
Save for a breath at dawn that undoes the spell

9. By God, Ulayya is a dear Uqayl
When she travels, the heart is desolate for her

10. The dimples of her mouth narrate a necklace, and if the dewdrops’
Necklaces at dawn narrate their beads, her dimples narrate them

11. A charmer who forged the locks of her cheek
As fetters upon the stallions of her imprisoned lovers

12. She smiles, revealing a pearl—I have not seen
A fairer rhyme scheme or prose than it

13. O Khaleel, ask today about the blond gazelle, her blond dunes
And do not let us be duped by the white and the brown that surrounds the white and the brown

14. She is but a visitor in her abode
Some look at her askance and some, accusingly, askance

15. And in the neighborhood, if we visit the top-knotted ladies
They leave behind in their cheeks a coyness that betrays us

16. The warble of the folds makes people think
That she has come to them, truthfully giving good tidings

17. That the ministry has returned
To the honor of the faith, so they returned it gaping smiles

18. Rejoicing in a master whom, since fate bore him
His Lord has clothed in fairer command and prohibition

19. You see his chest a sea, his fingers a serpent
And his morals a garden, his manners blossoms

20. The good acclaim of people in every sitting
A gentle breeze the listeners spread out to it

21. He assumed rule with munificence and might—he left
Them no benefit or harm in the hands of time

22. A wonder that a people worship time
When they have seen the Master who harnessed time

23. The clouds of his supremacy shaded the earth’s children
And his noble morals shone out stars abloom

24. He humbled the guarded chastity, and attained the heights
And confers the excess of a generous dowry when proposing to a virgin

25. He is the bosom, and Islam is a heart it harbors
And every heart but contains it— his breast a repository

26. Days came to him, and a ministry came to them
So they exalted it, and it exalted him

27. The sins of events were many against us
Yet when he came, he was forgiveness for them

28. I am amazed by him displaying such humility toward us
When a glance from him bequeaths us grandeur

29. A peerless brother at the pinnacle of glory, towering
A noble steed beneath him trampling eagles

30. He turns the enemies in the wake of letters into scattered troops
But the lion is only the follower of its fangs and victory

31. A protector whose subtlest ruse fells the foe
So how, when he threatens massive carnage?

32. With bright swords, burnished lethal blades
That on the day of panic turn tongues into red embers

33. And blue blades over brown—when the white blades charge
Their horses drive back the hues of their brown

34. A minister whose days donned the mantle of true guidance
While so many ministers’ days wore but the cloak of sin

35. How can injustice be feared in the era of his rule?
When his name in the past rent tyranny like Kisra’s?

36. Indeed, Anushirvan and justice returned to the world
When Anushirvan and justice had passed away

37. Fate related a verse forged by God as one
And returned to futility against incapacity, a breast

38. The Messenger of God was immoderate in his love for it
And so disclosed in the days of Suleiman, his pride

39. Else, what is the meaning of his immense pride
In an age the world brimmed over with disbelief?

40. But it was due to knowledge from him that the world would see
In the sword of Father Victory, victory for the religion of guidance

41. He supplicated, and God answered that his name
Would reach him, and maintain it for his community a treasure

42. You were greeted from afar by a glorious one restored
The halcyon days of fate to the hopeful one—good tidings

43. It signifies him: the pilgrims’ habit
Of visiting it, and birds do not mistake the nest

44. You see the earth a journey of delegations’ lines
To it, and wherever you turn, you see a journey

45. When Jesus conveys a delegation to it
Their smiles race to kiss its smiles—thanksgiving

46. When we intended to be hosted in its precincts
And fate had inclined to part them, we called it a kinsman

47. I folded to it for the misery of nomads a parchment
That makes the miles traversed by the caravan seem a line

48. If misery were a book perused by a student
My incessant unraveling of it would render it threadbare

49. Until when do I travel by night and day, migrating
With my household—God forbid you be deluded

50. I prolong vain hopes, ignorance I count riches
And my life has bid farewell to half

51. So the sterile and barren, the reckoning of their hopes
To the world’s final outcome will be odd or even

52. And I have verses that were, in the days of my youth
Swords, and the beauty of speech was engraved upon them

53. Since my hair turned gray, my poetry turned gray and deserted me
Due to a preoccupying age that distracted my thoughts

54. So who will restore me my dominion, my leisure, and riches
Two cosmetics, that I may dye the hair—and poetry?

55. To the honor of noble religion, our mounts strode
Steeds whose path none before it were praised

56. Truly astray is he who seeks riches through others
While immersing the world is one who from immersion sought treasure

57. So, kindly extend your sheltering shadow upon us
For supporting the free is more worthy for you

58. You have boiled the price of some hair-verses I say
And for poetry, none but generosity boils its price

59. I even hope that in your days, from elevation,
When I speak poetry, I will attain beneath me, prominence

60. So note in your ear something and its opposite
Some hear a bracelet, and some a grumble

61. She relinquishes herself, delivering her soul to her husband
And she seeks nothing but parity with him in dowry

62. This meeting with you—it is the greatest blessing
From God upon religion and world, if it were known

63. I vowed to take custody of the Holy Corner there
So let my right hand kiss me, that I may fulfill the vow

64. I was content with the turbid life for some time
And the pilgrim may drink the brackish and seize the bitter

65. But as you have arrived before me facing
It is time I do not drink the turbid draft

66. For every person there is a day he hopes for his fortune
And this, my day—so brace yourself for me

67. I intended to fast from praising kings and mentioning them
A lifetime—not a month—my thoughts to fast

68. But since I beheld your face arriving
For the fasting one of hopes, it necessitated breakfasting

69. You came with the Feast, so your arrival
Eclipsed it, following you, deemed redundant

70. We saw good fortune, but you outdid it
Blissing it, and it proceeded in your tracks

71. And they said: “We see the heralding immolation where
The new crescent has not dawned upon it for immolation”

72. So I said: “Nay, it is the Master son of Khalid
Whom the visitors are satiated by his most refined boons”

73. For us, each day of his comprises a holiday
Its seasons perfected from what the ten fingers circulate

74. His face, palms, life, and hands suffice as the new moon
Of the world, the ten, the feast, and the immolation

75. May your face ransom faces of lords and foes
Throngs intermixed like the sower’s white and yellow

76. Every envious blasphemer, his mouth is empty of
Thanking, but his eye for you is brimming with thanks

77. The downpour of your palm left no drop it did not spill
Upon its inhabitants, of the clouds’ dew a drop

78. You brought relief to the guests of worries, as though
You split with it, in the wing of the pitch-dark night, a cleft

79. And for a region’s scheme, you sent the scheme
Of pens for its hardship, substituting ease

80. And you count upon the right thumbnail, so if
Tomorrow there be clamor, count the left thumbnail

81. If they regard once more, they will know thereby
Your encompassing meanings—that you are the world’s breast

82. So your days in fate never ceased
To be distinguished by your fair traces

83. Just as you made people breasts of elevation
You made lifespans breasts prolonged for you

84. Those faces of lords and foes ransom for you
Throngs like the scatterer’s white and yellow interspersed

85. Every envious one, his mouth is empty of thanking you
Due to his rancor, but his eye for you brimming with thanks