1. By the Lord of the star and the star when it sets
And the One who revealed clear verses in the decisive Book

2. Baghdad has certainly shone since your arrival
As darkness shines at the rising of the full moon

3. It became relieved as the beloved garden
When the rains watered it, flowing from the clouds

4. And nothing delighted it like your arrival
Changing hardship into ease

5. And how much joy after sorrow and relief
From oppression that wronged with injustice

6. So the days after this bear no blame
For the days have come with excuses for people

7. You avoided it not out of boredom or weariness
But you saw that separation bears the fruit of presence

8. And you were not truly absent when absent
How could that be when she did not leave your thoughts?

9. You saw a position where no distinction is made
Between the free intellectual and the ignorant fool

10. Things must be appraised by a knowledgeable one
To distinguish between brass and pure gold

11. You were angry and only his rising up would appease you
When the courageous lion pounced ferociously

12. So you stripped with determination like a gallant
Pursuing the path of perils and investigating

13. And you turned away from a house deserving
To be adorned by refusing tyranny even if scant

14. You have continued covering every barren desert
Riding its towering and rugged back

15. You traveled to eternal glory and loftiness
From one honored abode to another pride

16. To the farthest extent beyond which
If limits are counted, it is home to the rockhearted

17. You spread in the land of Rome knowledge you had folded
At your sides until frightened by such spreading

18. The Commander of the Faithful was pleased by what he saw
His face lit up and how excellent is the sight of God

19. Religion indicated you are its pillar
And Islam said to it: Strengthen me by leaning on him

20. The Romans did not think Iraq could
Drag the mantle of glory over you

21. Nor did Constantine build what you built of everlasting
Sublimity remaining for endless time

22. Your enemies wished to reach your high unattainable station
As if seeking union with distant twinkling stars

23. Enough glory for Rome if it knew what you know
Impossible that it knows, impossible that it knows

24. What God has endowed you with of His bounty
Of magnificent awe and noble eminence

25. You have not attained the level you deserve
Despite the greatness of what you have attained in rank

26. It is as if I see a people who parted from you
Their yearning for you rekindled and their remorse overflowing

27. Longing to see you every hour
Regretting if you travel away from them

28. Even if souls among them forgive the likes of you
They are the most forgiving of people in benevolence

29. Souls cannot show patience without you
Though reasoning about the outcome of patience reassures them

30. You were away for a year long as a month are its days
By God, a day longer than a month

31. You undertook something whose sweetness comes after
One does not seek a beauty's hand without a bridal gift

32. I in remembering you become drunk for the likes of which
Is a passed out drunkard not awaking from intoxication

33. I wearied of the dwelling until I rejoiced for the goal
And until I saw the earth narrower than a span

34. If I could move away from it
I would hurl myself to you in the desolate ruin

35. My soul has no substitute for you in anyone
How can the thirsty be sated without the sea?

36. You sent us life when souls clung
To a wisp calling for resurrection and rebirth

37. He joined us to restore our lives
As halves are joined to wholes

38. O how the hand of blessing has appointed us
Though it is wont to withhold from the petty

39. To purify life for us, so our living was pleasant
And its horizons brightened by your days

40. It restored propriety to us after its loss
No longer encountering us as strangers

41. We point to your side as if pointing
To the crescent's sighting at the Breaking of the Fast

42. And Eid Day was not like it
Whether Eid of Fitr or Eid of Sacrifice

43. That is a day God knows
Will dispel gloom of afflictions with good news

44. Yours are the merit and bounty, near and far
And hand in hand from its fingers ten

45. If your hands upon us were reaped they would confine them
But they are beyond confinement

46. Soon and from afar, the excellence is yours
And supporting hand for supporting hand