1. The night brought from you a necklace and lips
When it turned to bring separation after union

2. And I wanted to steal a goodbye kiss
So my eyes were dazzled, each was a pearl

3. I was confused, was the lips a necklace
Or the necklace lips?

4. I kissed them both to end my doubt
As one who is infatuated would do

5. By my life, the pearl is not like lips from Suleima
But my eyesight was wrong, so forgive me

6. The ghost charmed my eyes, but when
Dawn breathed, that magic was undone

7. Who has ever seen between water and fire
An apparition wandering late at night?

8. Like the ghost who visited me, languid,
My heart aflame, my eyes weeping

9. By He who, if one foot steps forth
Toward union with him, another lags behind

10. And toward his face, when my gaze travels
It flees the jealous one, and turns away

11. Whenever it returns in my memories
Longing makes tumult in my heart

12. The day he arrived, leading an army of beauty
Someone said to me: Ask God for patience

13. I said: Leave me be, now his eyelashes unsheathe
A sword of glances that kills patience outright

14. O gazelle, when he smiles we say
A garden has blossomed, flowering

15. My heart melted for his lips - have you seen
Frost preceding it, melting embers?

16. I will not forget when his face appeared to me
Shy as a deer, bolting in fright

17. In a slim waist of eyes and hearts
Girded by him with a belt

18. I said: How much bitterness of rebuke do you give?
He said: the best wine is what is most bitter

19. I said: Pour the cups, lips for kissing
That the camel litters may bypass and I be drunk

20. If my tears felt your departure
They would leave no tears for others on earth

21. O clouds of eyelids, rain on my parched heart
The drops of my tears, for they remember you

22. The loved ones departed at dawn, pure white and brown
They and the palms white and brown

23. Each white one, when you looked
The sun embroidered its hems with gold

24. So God watered on the day they traveled in morning
A free man’s path to weeping with a free man’s tears

25. My tears flowed like theirs, though long ago
My tears would have poured forth abundantly

26. I used to be abundant with my tears
Mustering an army of tears as provisions

27. Hoping with weeping to block the path
Of the caravan, whenever the loved ones traveled

28. The tears promised, if the loved ones intended
To go on a journey, to make the land a sea

29. But they failed, so I said: Even you tears
Have learned treachery and betrayal

30. I swear I will keep no provisions after this day
Apart from my faith in Islam’s plenty

31. A callow youth for the times, yet in him
One who saw him before saw the most callow time

32. Palms that betray, unequal to rivals, a tear
That continually shreds honor, no mending it

33. Surpassing in gifts, so that praise from him
Is replaced by thanks composed by them

34. A horseman steady in the field of generosity
His palm kills wealth and poverty alike

35. Making the delegations take ease in his palm
As he welcomes them, his face gladdened

36. So if he appears from afar to a lad
His gladdening seems rearranged into ease

37. How often he saw a squinting man and corrected
Crooked men through him, straightening their deviance

38. His strategy for a foe avoids base backstabbing
The like of him avoids it, and vulgar striking

39. A battleground where he fells his enemies, neither spear
Thrusts there, nor iron coats of mail from Busra

40. A vanished lion, yet his tongue makes you see
Eloquence - his fang and claw suffice

41. With the books of time, a book may be ransomed
That came from him, kissing its seal in devotion

42. A candle that makes all other lights envy its splendor
And hence their tears always flow

43. One of dignity, showing humility as religion
And swaying branches to please those who seek greatness

44. He does not favor in his rule, but makes equal
His mighty self with common people

45. If we knew a rock in generosity, we would
Have struck sparks of generosity from it

46. Glorious, we wish for clouds to rain ten from his hands
That name his fingers the ten Glorious Ones

47. Whoever compares him in glory to his father
Will find no flaw or breach in that gauging

48. O son of one whose worth and yours are truly
Noble character, a noble soul and view

49. O sons of Tahir, how much good news
God gave in his time for the Prophet, a blessing

50. Between his two eyes appeared from you
The latent light for the Prophet, so rejoice

51. He saw him giving good news of you
So he gave Hoyaydah the glad tidings

52. It is as if the Prophet, God bless and keep him
Saw that day how you all rally as one

53. To aid his religion today with victory
So may the times ransom you, best of his family

54. When events offer young and old
With faces of loyal saints, the pure and tanned

55. O critic assailing me, erasing from the shining
Parchment of my life a line

56. How far to how far do I cross the sea of death
Making my will its bridge

57. Greedy for the surplus of a lifetime, I drive on
A lifetime, though half of it is already bitter

58. Like a pregnant camel seeking to be covered
Taking a mate though already pregnant

59. Always resolute, never pausing before fate
Nor abandoning one inch of earth

60. And a time that folded up my hopes
Among earth’s kings, and made my heart a grave

61. Playing with kings, having cast down the choicest
Dynasties, yet marring the moon

62. How I took cover, after some tribes, with others
Ages, with the last still a secret

63. My time was a poor night, until
God made the full moon dawn in it

64. Strange, myself and time and my sires
And the lad is always but half done, half begun

65. I vanished in the night of youth over the
Manuscripts of its far reaches, wasting my life

66. And I returned to serve you when
Grey hairs sprouted in my curls

67. As if, having wandered into darkness
Day restored to me a pearl concealed

68. When I dismounted to join him, as the guide
Took us down, the tents folded

69. My intent was to shun people totally
Yet here I am, alighting among people

70. God made from my tongue a sword
Then flowing through it, praise of you its engravings

71. My custom, as long as I live, is thanks
For I count ingratitude only disbelief

72. The coldness of a favor creates rancor
If it curls up, and creates no delight

73. To you, at dawn, so meet it with
The perfume of my thoughts, O pillar of the faith

74. Give it your care, for it is like a will
Entrusted to the virtuous, pleased with a dowry from you

75. From abodes where, having descended, they established
Hospitality, and read poetry

76. If fate related some of them in perpetuity
It would outlive its age with long life

77. O lofty heaven through your generosity
Time never lacks a raindrop from it

78. I have not found among the sons of this age a noble one
By my life, I nearly imagined something

79. But when I saw you, in my view
It was clear God has a secret in creation

80. We are revived seeing your face at dark
Sufficing us, and you hereafter know more

81. Introduction - good fortune in the face of Abu al-Fath Sa‘id
And glory to the Freeman is more fitting

82. So the noble month in which you came
Brought you praise and reward as gifts

83. You, none of creation comprised your like
Nor did the year comprise a month like it

84. O noble one, easy natured and lenient
You take on the nature of creation and uplift it

85. Have you seen the crescent, how it appears
Hidden, leaving gazers deprived?

86. Like a bracelet on a maiden’s wrist
Dressed in the excess of her sleeve, then laid bare

87. But when it approached the west closely
Eyes glimpsed it, left and right

88. Thus whenever one of honor acts humble
Toward others, he is higher in rank

89. So remain, best of humanity, aloof
In lineage that dazzles kings and in-laws

90. Resident among your father’s sons, resembling
A moon centered among radiant stars

91. Your father delights in your summit
As if dawn never broke its fast for people