1. How much blood in you, O critic, flows,
And hearts with burning passion pray!

2. Some by your eyes' wine made prone,
Some by your lids' sword slain are they.

3. Tell your eyes: you have killed us well,
Be kind to the love-sick and his slay.

4. May you have a lover fickle and sly
Though love for him may never cloy.

5. O dear one, who humbly I obey,
And passion the proudest lays low.

6. If you're quick to estrange and chide
Or blame your love-sick, go slow!

7. When you turn disdainful, then to me
Your gentle words are sweetest cheer.

8. The pain of your disdain no end knows
Advise brings no surcease, my dear.

9. My critic thinks he hears advice
From me, while I his blame allow.

10. My heart is ordered to be calm, but who
Can please it so it may relax now?

11. Let me be, O love, and gently may
My lover gladden me if we're apart.

12. Many a specter of days gone by
Came by and I welcomed them in good heart.

13. She who debarred me, then sent her wraith,
Wronged me by holding back, allowing my heart.

14. She sent her phantom, disdaining not
To visit me, kindness and stinginess showing.

15. Her specter almost ended my woe
In the two abodes or even less so.

16. My eyes looked on the habitations of grief
So I let their tears flow copiously.

17. I staunched not my tears, recalling
My loved ones, till my clothes were soaked thoroughly.

18. You watered the clouds, O house of darkness,
Breezes being laden with sweet misery.

19. Long have I dwelt in you, and living was bright,
Bride of wine glowing in festivity.

20. I sipped the wind from the pillows of pain
Making for me his rosy cheeks sweet fruit to bite.

21. Weep for me the days of youth or weep
For my weeping, as youth for tears is more worthy.

22. Where is that passion and how to fulfill it
Once being wine, how did it turn to naught?

23. My friend, this is the steed that travelled
By night, crossing trackless wastes and plains lofty.

24. Passion was its saddle, and parting
Its bridle, and yearning its heavy load verily.

25. It burns as if within its bowels
Are embers melting into fervent glow.

26. Having folded its wings over the ground
It rendered it food, its hooves digging holes.

27. Could it be seeking moisture from the clouds?
Their rain left no craving in the soul.

28. It outstripped its peers when but a colt,
Then outstripped all when mature it did grow.

29. The hand of the Lofty One lifted it nobly,
The file of mastery did polish it so.

30. It dazzled time with its beauty, and when
It shone forth, it lit up every vale low.

31. It lavished beauty on all, and we said:
The noble are thus, and naught else, lo!

32. With hands that make the abode fertile
In times that render affairs sterile, empty in flow.

33. Lavishing all that pleases and is sweet,
Neither wearying nor grudging its bestow.

34. The Hashimite youth, when bounteous, enriches,
And when freest with gifts thinks it too few.

35. You may find him, due to his excess bounty,
Oft prodigal, though miserly to you.

36. To him both states are one in the end:
Wealth with him is equal, much or little in show.

37. O House of God, if you know not what they are,
Ask of the House about them and the place of prayer.

38. By my father! you are from the line of Taha,
Noblest of beings in reason and transmission.

39. A lord whose palm disdains taking
And whose nature agrees not with stinginess.

40. By the precedence you took over successors,
My lord, you attained the predecessors also.

41. No people have risen to glory
Unless you were loftier, of all the loftiest O!

42. Sweetest of branch, sweetest of essence, feared
Are the wiles of fate, and hoped for gifts that flow.

43. If you are the sweetest of all in lineage
You are without doubt the sweetest in origin's bestow.

44. O you of lofty stature, son of Ali,
Sublimities would not consent to other than you for husband.

45. We tested you on a day when no rain came down
So we took you as a substitute for clouds that bestow.

46. And we found you to be for all a refuge,
All hope in your munificence and grace to flow.

47. And desires unload their burdens at your door
Each day they pass and fill up their saddlebags anew.

48. Meeting camels whose high necks God made
Shade over the barren waste spread and endow.

49. Perhaps in early days you were an exemplar
And today we find no peer for you anymore.

50. You are a being who grows loftier in station
And rank each day, more distinguished and exalted in position.

51. You are in every place a verse
Of your beauty, recited and relayed.

52. So if I say anything praising you
I'm told: "You are the most truthful of all in speech".

53. So accept, my Master, my praises of you
And pride is mine if you would be my patron.

54. Be gracious to accept it, for grace is yours,
And you have always been worthy of virtues.

55. May the days, each year, always
Bring you celebration, and you go from might to height.