1. The eyelids of the graceful damsel's languid glances,
Preoccupied with you, neglect trysts of affection.

2. She poured the treasure of a yellow tear
In a blushed cheek of flowing crimson.

3. So her visage in its symmetry appears like braids,
Necklaces and strings of pearls.

4. Her fervent passion ignited sorrow’s blaze,
And it blazed with unabating flames.

5. She rose like the dawn sun in the height of ecstasy,
While the sun rose in the sky of her envious beloved.

6. She glanced at my specter with an eye that lent
Support to passion’s pillar in my smitten heart.

7. So I slaughtered patience’s beauty beneath my chest
With a clear slaughtering stroke across her neck.

8. Far be it that sorrow’s ember should meet firewood
Except with a touch like the kiss of tinder.

9. He whom the fires of grief left of me
Has become a captive for destruction’s sake.

10. The delights of wealth laugh off the delights
Of mounts pacing with provisions for the road.

11. So I roamed the earth’s expanse beneath resolve
In plains that diminish the range of all faraway places.

12. They spur faster when the pillow's shift spurs on
The cheeks' profusion toward divine oneness.

13. Her wedding nights midst the bedchambers, her acclimation
Until I triumphed with the most praised Ahmad.

14. So I alighted beneath a cloudburst
With laughter-flashing and rumbling storms.

15. You find him amongst visitors as though he were
The moon of heaven gleaming among the stars.

16. If aloes wood were to exude in the stream and its scent
Would rise with the scent of the finest aloes wood.

17. Mansur endowed him with his generous right hand
And he left unequaled without equal.

18. So he sees wealth’s evanescence as the best of his treasures,
And endless praise as the best of eternity.

19. Abu al-Hasan shows kindness and restores it,
So those hopeful of kindness await his feast day.

20. I greeted his prime with excellent eulogies—
A greeting, so greet my prime with bounty!

21. If solidity were to intend one day to cleave
The side of solidity it would split asunder.

22. When the land's expanses need his aid, the youth’s resolve
Quenches their thirst from a spring and artery.

23. He pursues their enemies with his determination
Granting them triumph and support.

24. With a sharp, intent gaze and hearing set toward
The screaming, exhausted prey.

25. You find him alone, and suppose that he is,
Through his resolve, an army and multitude.

26. O you, the hoped-for King, whom my insight has moved
To compose the rhythm of my poem.

27. I am a footman in the land of Ma'arr, mounted
Atop the steeds of sublime poetry.

28. So honor the lowliness of my legs with one who is refined,
Sweet of gait, elegant and extended.

29. Of brown, blond or bay coat,
Or dusky—the very marrow of sagacity.

30. The glances dance gracefully in his motions
Like my dances in your extended shade.

31. Clad in a coat that surpasses in its lightness
The beauty of the coats of brocade.

32. So when he appears in a scene, the nobles
Of the honored assembly's breasts stand for him.

33. The rider finds joy in the one carrying him
Like his joy in the natural-born knight.

34. If the horses outpace him in the race-course
They fling their reins to him in surrender.

35. So he goes amongst his trainers defying
And girt with the sash of the blackest black.

36. While his entourage charm him against every
Incantation they know to avert praise.

37. They fall for the radiance in his face—
The love of a boy for a rosy-cheeked girl.

38. I lower my eyelids in gratitude to you—they
Grew heavy upon me due to your bounty.

39. I take refuge in the height of your towering mountain,
A mountain that takes the place of steel bastions.

40. The course of time arrives at no man
Presiding in your familiar domain.