1. O bird of happiness, sing to me of arts
And cure what I have of worries and sadness

2. And in my heart there is endless yearning
If your heart is empty without passion

3. Why do I see you without longing or bashfulness
Without a lover you wish for or tranquility

4. If you are fair to whom you love
Then I am a lover who is not treated fairly

5. And misfortune is but an affliction that dwelt
In a heart while another heart remained unallured

6. In the sand dune I left hastily
My eyes spotted whatever beauty and refinement was there

7. I love one there who does not pity me
And whose heart is harsh, unkind, and merciless

8. He never fulfills his promises to his lover
For if he promises, he keeps procrastinating my reward

9. He treats me badly though I’m under his command
And I do not see from him any chance to set me free

10. My soul is ransom for dear friends I frequented
Whose company makes me happy while their absence saddens me

11. A worry that preoccupies and exhausts me
Or an illness that persists in ailing me

12. And many are the nights that passed while I lie sleepless
While the one causing my insomnia rests quietly

13. A gazelle who avoided my love so I aroused its passion
Its love sometimes makes me rise and sometimes makes me sit

14. Perplexing is its face to the rising sun
And its stature puts the branch to shame if it touches it

15. I obey it while it disobeys me and I treat it equitably
While it tries to wrong me and oppresses me

16. Why did imagination, which once brought us together
In the days of your company, now haunt me?

17. Its delusions have stripped certainty out of my heart
So neither my eye nor my ear perceive the truth

18. Say to those who packed up for their journey
On the day we parted, with flanks thin of flesh

19. The poles kept jerking them
Until they became like rags

20. Today you have carried away my heart in your litters
While carrying away my body does not benefit me

21. I am not in a homeland you have left
And wherever your traveling destination, there lies my homeland

22. My friend - however much time brings about
Of smooth or coarse events

23. Tell the King of all Kings of earth
And the pillar of religion and the follower of traditions

24. You have attained what neither Chosroes attained
Nor did the aspirations of Amr Ibn Hisham or Saif Ibn Dhi Yazan reach

25. Were there no similarity between the noble manners
You were characterized with and others, there would have been no equal

26. You overlook others’ slips - while the peoples altogether
Are wary of frowning at none save the perceptive man

27. You skip words whose context is not praiseworthy
While too many taciturnities are not to be admired

28. Your refusal to be generous redeems any clinching of a fist
When needing money, seeking dignity, or asking for help

29. Turning away from kindness, lurking on the sidelines
Showing patience for weakness and refraining from infamy

30. By God, when matters turned ghastly, you shook off
The garb of dread and panic from your ribs

31. And stab wounds gape openly in your clenched fist
As if it is the cheek of a banner or otherwise like a club

32. While you are among a group of highbred men
Who never accepted to wear modest gowns in battlefields of glory

33. Walking naked except for the pretty women altogether
And wearing nothing but the clothes of the ugly and vulgar

34. And purchasers of praise - when hopes declined
To attain all praise by paying highly for it

35. They have spotless elegant clothes that show no blemish
As days went by while their hands hold no udders

36. And if you call them one day to fight
They will come to you prepared and hastening to the plains and fortresses

37. With arms they are always accustomed to shake
The white sand dunes or frighten the docile sheep

38. Say to him who tries to shoot me out of ignorance
That you are to me a stronger shield against madness

39. Do not seek to rob me nor stretch your hands to rob from me
For you are the pillar of religion that protects me

40. I used to satirize fate constantly before I knew you
And after finding you, I cannot blame destiny

41. You are dearer to my heart than places of rest
And fairer to my eye than late nights or visiting friends

42. Fate has brought me closer to you, for never before
Have I donned a crown that exalted me before you came

43. Know that I reserve for your right hand better than wealth
Kept in storage houses of the covetous

44. So if you find me, as you have experienced, loose tongued
Then praising you becomes contingent upon my loose tongue

45. And I have accepted none but you to command me
I even accepted you prohibiting and commanding me

46. When I praise you, I offend no one
While the one who excuses me is he who reproached me

47. Poems that stirred listeners’ hearts just like wine
Stirs up the insides of one having delicate nerves

48. Neglect is like death regarding the circulation of its texts by narrators
And the living soul of Mudar is like the living soul of Yemen

49. I have reasons to advance me in praising you
And I sometimes have reasons that hold me back

50. The plenitude of your exceeding merit shields me from my tribesmen
And my tremendous forbearance from my detractors reassures me

51. So enjoy this feast and breakfast, they are both
And your success in all you seek to accomplish are in harmony

52. Fasting has passed and no sin recorded against you therein
Nor did any speck of doubt manage to blemish it

53. The meadows will praise you at dawn
Just as they praised the gardens

54. And last by glory you rise high and proven trust
You brought out by your generosity from the clutch of favors

55. Dawn never shone, its omens never emerged
Nor did a singer trill on a branch