1. Are those glances in your eyes swords,
Or is your heart at war with me, seeking peace?

2. Never before the day of parting did I see warriors
Battling with their eyelids, nor orators.

3. No hero unsheathing his sword, whose glance
Strips him bare and whose eyelids are shields.

4. As if the eternal warriors, when they rested,
Were swaying gently between companions.

5. They came to you from the wilderness with their eyeliner
Like kohl on the eyelid from the peek of mountain climbers.

6. With disheveled hair, whose braids the necklaces adorn
With two long dark tresses of wild flowing hair.

7. Its shadow plays with it friskily and stoops over it
From the gazelles of the plain that ascend the hillocks.

8. To make you relent, O daughter of the people! I swear
With your love, if I paid the raging passion its due.

9. How many enviers curb my rein, treating with disdain
The passion for you, while the blamer blames.

10. Your glances have seduced every heart,
So none are safe from your eyes.

11. I say, while twisting with recollection,
And I cannot control the terrible anxiety,

12. My tears watered, even if they do not describe passion,
The resting places between ridge and gentle plain.

13. Crying for you has not tired my eyes,
So the long nights need no clouds.

14. The girl's bracelets clink on her,
Like peals of thunder in the desolate wilderness.

15. They emerge from the slopes like flashes of lightning,
Girded up, plunging into the fray.

16. They shake the foe as the eggs shake the eggs,
Their forelegs are their pillars.

17. They drank from cups of wine and traveled on
The songs of the vanguards incline the turbans.

18. Their guide said, as their determination
To reach the heights continued to drive them:

19. “When our she-camels bring us to the skilled warriors
And carry us to the son of Ghanim's door,

20. We will pay the stallions their price and then
Press our smiling mouths to their smiling mouths.

21. How can we deny what the mares have done
When they brought us to the sacred precincts?

22. The company of a youth in whom
Are seasons for merit, charity and sublimity.

23. A leader, whenever you think of him,
He seems to you a learned man in the garb of a scholar.

24. He restored grammar to prosperous regions
And returned science to famed landmarks.

25. A brother of Trust whom a man would shake
A sword at in the most serious adversities.

26. He has a bestowing hand, fulfilling words,
An accompanying heart, and prudent deeds.

27. His speech is immortal, his cunning is ‘Amr’s
His succor is ‘Amir’s, his generosity Hatim’s.

28. If his hands are naturally generous,
It is from the morals of generous forefathers.

29. When you come to him, you will meet a tear
Of youths, fair of face, cheerful.

30. If you seek his aid in some serious matter,
The keenest two-edged sword will be unsheathed.

31. His noble qualities will never be absent,
While the envier continues to choke with rage about him."