1. By my father, whose stature is upright,
I am intoxicated with the wine of youth,

2. My wish is to gaze upon him, and my wish
Is a bright, smiling, kohl-lined moon.

3. What crescent of `Amer,
What gazelle whose gazelle-like qualities are excellent?

4. His stature and his spear - which of the two
Shines brighter, or which of the two should I kill?

5. My death by his cheek, not by swords -
Nor by spears brandished, but by eyes.

6. And by the eyelids - no, by the eyelids - my war,
The sword is only what the kohl has extracted.

7. He knows that intimacy is perilous, so he
Neither benefits you, nor keeps his pact, nor delays.

8. Beauty corrupts like money does -
Just as generosity fixes it, so does stinginess.

9. So for my sake he is the poet of beauty, and tomorrow
He will say to lovers what he does not do.

10. My eyelids have no effect on him,
Nor does my body's sickness, not before.

11. When the morning sun rises and darkness falls
From his temple, covering it in dangling shadows,

12. I saw tears, copious, aided
By passion, and patience in his love that fails.

13. The open desert is nothing but a garden -
Revelation rains upon it from above.

14. It equalized night and day, and dawn poured
Shadows, and in its small pebbles lay the waterholes.

15. How many blessings to live in its expanses -
Its plateau and its mountains elucidate them!

16. Violets like cheeks circled,
And narcissi - nothing but the meadows.

17. The doves wept - so the soil smiled,
And the sand grouse danced, and the streams sang.

18. Where the curvy dunes, like the curvy dunes, blew
A scent - so begin by accepting acceptance.

19. Every passionate understander, not mere listener,
Knows what I’m telling about the bustling meadows.

20. Dawn makes its flowers shine, and makes
The green leaves for them into gowns.

21. So nobility is nothing but what ennobles it -
An arrow is just an arrow, and worries are death.

22. How many early brooks have passed the morning,
Becoming swords - and the soft winds their whetstones!

23. The boughs of its branches have grown white with
The whiteness of a beloved’s hair, right before it is combed.

24. His neck was adorned with wavy black hair
Like a spear in the hand of one who greases it with honey.

25. His cheeks did not last long save my murder -
Nor did the cheeks of roses redden, but for shyness.

26. O you who stumble in all besides! Do not
Incapacitate yourself! And O you, his eyelashes’ arrows! Do not paralyze!

27. In others, in other towns, where
Passion is disobeyed, and separation obeyed.

28. With passion, I have no time for separation - just as
The son of Ali has with glory no time.

29. Wild yet gentle, fearful yet hoped-for,
Departing yet close, last yet preferred.

30. Every rival fell short of him and passed,
With the steed of precedence, the generous, preferred.

31. To him belong the white hands, and the days have darkened -
He strikes the world with them as examples.

32. Adorned with the crown, the times went astray, as he
Made eras stumble in nobility and power.

33. Revealed through his domination each owner
Of might, and tied with his authority the useless.

34. And safety from fear, and ease of the arduous,
And mending of breaks, and closing of holes.

35. The vigilant caller, the excellent father, the formidable,
The generous, the loyal, the changing.

36. Praise cannot twist away from him,
Nor can separation, even for a day, turn from his domains.

37. He has been generous and passionate without well-being,
So for the wretched there is money, and for the homeless, shelter.

38. He took a stand for religion and the state together -
With mighty courage and godliness that knows no ignorance.

39. An ambition that rises - it is the sun -
Or climbs to the heights, so it is Saturn.

40. He protected the lair of kingship from it with courage,
Frightening the lion of the lair, the valiant.

41. If his quality is high lineage, then he is lasting,
Or if roused, then he shakes, or if calm, then he is a mountain.

42. O companion whose era obeyed, accompanying
Him until even his difficult nights were subdued.

43. He appointed the youths of his determination to positions -
Banishing from them the worthless and fruitless.

44. Firm to the supplicant, quick of hearing,
In him gentleness, delicacy, and haste.

45. Proceeding in the clothes of the lofty, cloaked,
So he is a sword, and the heights are garments.

46. The water of dew flows clear after turbidity through him,
And the withering bloom flourished, and theoved wadi.

47. So the face is bright, the generosity understood,
The rule just, and the words final.

48. Say of him what pleases the lofty, for he
Speaks what pleases the hoped-for, and does.

49. Ask - even if the doubts’ contention deafens you -
His pens will convince you, and the male gazelle, and the chained.

50. Every deaf speaker - the reed-flute is his voice,
The deaf are slaves, and pipes are boys.

51. In it is bliss and misery for the doll -
Yes, and from it is their sustenance and term.

52. He is enraged at the sinner - so he is the pelting rain,
Or pleased with the good-doer - so he is honey.

53. Rectifying - he ordains non-existence in their plains,
And spreads generosity and ordains bounty.

54. Glory is none but what they desired, so they prevented,
Wealth is none but what they were generous with, so they spent.

55. They poured forth, they strove, they questioned the calamities and proceeded -
Their quality was bounty, they gave and so were just.

56. Seas of generosity and dew never exhausted,
Full moons of justice and guidance never weakening.

57. How much they bestowed when approached, and prevented when distanced!
How many favors they revived, and sorrows they killed!

58. Were it not for you, the cup of eulogy would not
Have described me roses, nor would bees have settled upon me.

59. As long as the knots of praise from
Its branches continue to untie upon you.

60. A young man who hopes in you succeeds - no, loses if
After God, he does not rely upon you.

61. So accept the gift of the tail that the auspicious
Night has woven, with this year ahead departing.

62. It goes in the world like your gifts - not
Staying but a moment before departing.

63. And if the dishonest gain from it, then for it
Are the hearings' rejection and the hearts' settlement.

64. Lawful magic unlike any affectation -
A polished sword unlike any scabbards.

65. And may you remain as long as the knots of praise
From its branches continue to untie upon you.