1. My tears on my cheek are like pearls scattering
Whether news of them came to me or no tidings came

2. And how can my passion subside if news comes
And yearning grows more tumultuous when they are mentioned

3. What lover sheds tears that obey him
If he holds them back, and when does he let them flow

4. Think not the youth's tears are spilt, truly his tears
Are deemed by all places to be rainfall

5. By Allah I have no patience to help me
With a separation decreed for us by Fate

6. His estrangement is to my heart like
What an envier said without effect

7. He did not discredit him - does one seek to find fault
In the moon's conduct, and impute to it foul deeds?

8. A creation of benevolence and refined manners
Whoever sees him says, 'People are not like this'

9. He conceals himself from the sun modestly with a veil, so it
Has not seen the like of him, neither female nor male

10. If it saw him, abashed it would remain
Changing through intense jealousy and wonder

11. To him belongs deliberation when people of bounty are hasty
To him belongs loyalty when people of rancour are treacherous

12. When I look at him I say in wonder
‘It is for the like of this the gaze was created’

13. And you insisted I never looked on him
With a nature to equal him, neither female nor male

14. No fault in him, save that in his absence
No letters reach me, nor any news

15. So he is dear to me, and if you wish, excuse him
For in passion the like of this sin is forgiven

16. I have awoken from him, and they said, since he left me
Neither have his eyelids nor my tears and sleeplessness departed

17. So spare me your rebukes against him
For my heart is not what you supposed it to be, a stone

18. Nor is what is in you the same as what is in me, as they described
What was said of him cannot be gainsaid

19. I have wronged him by punishing what he is not guilty of
And the unjust, on Judgement Day, will fall short

20. The pure sovereign, al-Malik ibn al-Ashraf, ibn
al-Afdal, ibn al-Diya’ al-Muzaffar

21. Of countless merits, that cannot be counted or comprehended
How can pebbles be counted, or rain confined?

22. What we have heard, and what those before never heard
Of your generosity, O Yaḥyá, even if they spread it

23. You were the first king who established
The honourable practice of not taking gifts offered by hands to which palaces bow

24. So if it was said to someone, “Take it,” he would say “You are mistaken,
This is abundant, while my worth is paltry”

25. How many excellent customs in nobility and generosity you originated
That no human before you instituted in the world

26. The days have returned in Yaḥyá like a vigorous youth
After it had been bent by old age and senility

27. How many alive has he set upright with his justice, when they had reached
The point of extinction, so we thought them strewn like the dead

28. What is this supreme conduct that has spread about you
In the land, and these sweet savours that have diffused?

29. A wondrous miracle has come to pass for Yaḥyá
Which kings aspired to in what they decreed

30. The world's love for you is unanimous—no one
Except has you for their hearing and sight

31. A love tempered by awe, kept straight by it
For they all hasten to comply when a command comes

32. The only pleasure of a kingdom is love which earns for it
From every person's heart obedience to authority

33. Since you ruled them, people have expressed no complain
Against Fate, nor have they offered any excuse

34. They used to blame it, but the fault was not its
Since, in its aspect, there was neither benefit nor harm

35. Until you reigned, and evil departed, the blame
Ceased, and the fault they mentioned, vanished

36. So may the Feast and the boons that follow it delight you
With the herald of good tidings, triumph and victory

37. And it is more fitting that you should congratulate it
O rain, O thirst-quencher in the arid land, O moon!

38. They said, ‘Shua'i prolongs poetry,’ I said to them
‘For one like Yaḥyá, my spinning it out is no shame’

39. When the watering place draws near and the bucket reaches it
With what you wish, to lengthen the rope is seemly

40. They prolonged it only because they thought
Had they known the watering place was near, they would have shortened it

41. O Lord, reserve no glory or honour
But let Yaḥyá have the best of it

42. For Yaḥyá, whom You, O God, created
You have made a sign in generosity to be contemplated

43. So turn no hopeful to a merit You possess
Except what the divine decree decides returns to him