1. Is your cheek aurora in the cup or sphalerite?
Is your lip a pearl that sprouts enclosed in acorns?

2. Is this your voice, or scattered pearls,
With no existence but in our hearing gathered?

3. Is your stature a branch inclined on a twisting rod
That the straight rod envies, nay burns with jealousy?

4. The turban has enclosed from you a lover’s passion,
Oh, what that turban has enclosed!

5. Yearning for you wraps me, increased
By your home’s nearness, and its courtyard’s expanse.

6. I was gentle in my love when you adorned its head,
As pens and candles are gentled by the cat.

7. I have worn love for you since my youth habitually
A child, till white hairs shone in my parting.

8. A maiden spent the night sipping wine
Making revelers regret a maiden’s grace in her gift.

9. She is the full moon outshining in its chalice
The resting sun, and Pleiades gleam in her ear.

10. She became plucking at hearts with her love,
So if she stipulated affection, the condition could not be met.

11. Her ways are to keep justice in passion,
And the ways of Nur Ad-Din in the world are justice.

12. Through him fear departed and safety came,
And prosperity’s band arrived, and drought was lifted.

13. He closes in spirits his enemies’ hopes, open-handed in bounty,
So for that seizing and releasing, praise be to God from him.

14. Toward the auspicious king his birds took wing,
Galloping steeds of hope for goodness trotting.

15. To the king from his pens and his spears
His dexterous line has eternally proclaimed its pride, and line.

16. So from his striking lengthwise and crosswise with his sword
Ruin is seen among the corpses of his enemies, and cross.

17. He is the bloody-clawed lion in battle’s fury,
Before his charging, other lions retreat.

18. He is time, hoped for in every moment, and feared,
He is the sea, none can match his abounding coasts.

19. The lips of sultans kiss his open hand,
From that kissing, none thrives but his open hand.

20. And ask his worshipers of the cross and their horses
Beneath armor their skins for them are pierced.

21. They told of rending the flock of sheep asunder,
Scattered by his knights in the battle’s fray.

22. So when that occurred, they had no shred of mercy,
Nor compassion when the flock was ravaged by them.

23. Among them are the slain, the imprisoned,
The wounded cleaving to their sides in pain.

24. If he raided the protected tribes, rewarding them pleased him,
But the hostile tribes, his might destroyed them in anger.

25. Desire drew me to my lord’s door,
And none but seekers gathered before that door.

26. The elite have only his shade when hardship’s path narrows,
As the kinsmen saw, beset by scarcity’s misery.

27. None prosper but Job’s people in the land,
Like bats in darkness’ wings, lost.

28. Like one who abandoned both his gardens, and had
Nothing left but misery’s bread to gnaw.

29. Among the kings of earth, who is like their forebear,
Was any his equal seen, ever?

30. A tribe, pillars for the kingdom whenever
A pillar among them passed on, a pillar replaced him.

31. Their glory almost drowns the land in its flooding,
And their fierce warring burns it with sparks falling.

32. And I seek from him a sustenance he will provide,
Perhaps fulfilling my need before him while energetic.

33. So sign to grant me what I request,
For a company, if my affair is accomplished through them, will accomplish.

34. And he who intends the sea of virtues for his watering place
Is not impeded, in what he intends, from attaining it.

35. I have no protector in life but you, my disciples,
Surrounding me in study.

36. He who chases doom, no difference is there
Between him and a man hounded by dogs barking.

37. Ali, abundant are the bounties of your hands,
The Indus and the Nile fell short counting them.

38. When the world for an hour did not taste your loss,
You rose in it, never declining.

39. You continue to grant your loyal friends blessings,
And overwhelm enemies as you wish to overwhelm.