1. The cheeks of Hasan ibn Wahb are most fragrant,
And sweetest to bite for the envious, most delicious.

2. When innate character or upbringing polish him,
He has a nature soft as meadows, or yet more fertile.

3. The horizons of praise strike him with flashes
Like musk blown about by the breeze and scenting the air.

4. The gentle spirit inhales his breath,
A balm, to be drunk by the conscience and imbibed.

5. Generosity went about in his manner of thought
So that assumptions all went astray, led by its example.

6. And I saw his cheek one bright morning of calamity
In its majesty, and I said: lightning? or planet?

7. It gave joy, as the dawn gives joy in thick darkness,
As though the dawn in it were sunset.

8. A folk ransom him whose honor
Evil aspersions have made to disappear and vanish.

9. As though every shred of decency
Were mantled by its lake and gardens with duckweed.

10. The double-clad starer with his eyes boring
And cheeks held tight, looks to his provision,

11. So if I seek from them what I have not attained,
I gain from their absence what I do not seek.

12. His cloak gathered up youth and chivalry,
The torrent fed him, and the shooting star gave him to drink,

13. Pure as the shooting stars are purified, truly in that,
In the dye of modesty he is steeped.

14. Good fortune meets his face and loves him,
While you are touched with smear of hatred and so made lovable.

15. Brotherhood's a nativity, and I'm a man who claims kinship
Wherever I'm congenial and so engender.

16. And when men bandy together in an assembly,
He reconciles views or turns them aside.

17. You seized both traits for yourself, while men’s counsel
Came round behind your view, turned away.

18. And when I see you, and words are pearls
Strung, virgin and ripe in arrangement and threading,

19. You are like one making speeches in Okaz,
Or Layla the poetess, elegizing,

20. Or boastful Kuthayyir on the day of Bu‘ath, reciting ancestry,
Or Ibn al-Muqaffac in al-Yatima waxing eloquent.

21. You clothe dignity and take on with ease the dignified,
Now overwhelming, making hearers weep and tremble.

22. What you patched and sent back to us came
A tatter—had we wished we might have said a ship!

23. The juice of creation has a mute tongue,
Dumb meanings, but a face so eloquent.

24. It ogles and with a glance breaks open hearts,
Lingers for the amorous eye then accompanies.

25. The ogler turned the wine of his cheek to a circulator,
And I reckon because of the spittle in it, it will thicken.

26. Praise you were loved for, and reward that lifted
Over it the necks of a darkening eve.

27. Take it, though the favor be not returned,
Unadulterated, when men mix, refined.

28. Waft us a scent from the perfume of your tents
If character itself is something granted.