1. The youths mingled, flirting with maidens,
Who exude perfume after beauty.

2. They provoked longing when their ostriches gathered,
And bequeathed hearts with unhealed cracks.

3. They are neglected ruins who set out with intent
And did not wait for you, hastening to Malhub.

4. They spent the night with the beloved, so the jealous bowed to them.
They are owners of glory, might, and coquetry.

5. From it are ballads that drive the camels when they are led,
And in the zithers are sounds of clappers.

6. And the camels among them are as if fear mixed with them
Or a blow from a curved sword afflicted them.

7. The litters are covered with every kind of brocade curtain,
And in the howdahs are pampered virgins,

8. Like statues, passionate with longing under the canopies.
Whenever their veils are unveiled, their faces

9. Are like flawless round pearls, not pierced.
They have the curves of gazelles, and their faces

10. Are like golden dinars with moving pupils.
As if the gold coins are placed between emeralds

11. In the middle of chokers by the dressers.
On the necks, soft as dove eggs, delicate,

12. Adorned with necklaces and perfume.
Their breasts, harder than mirrors, swell out

13. With every unconstrained movement in their anklets.
Their beauties shine, smooth,

14. With every curl of brown hue, dyed.
The yellowness of their curves from the perfume on them

15. Shows them to have moles without veils.
They show palms that hunt hearts when they smile,

16. Some rouged, some without rouge.
Their grinning mouths, when they smile,

17. Are like meadows of springtime with bushes.
In a garden of the gardens of sorrow, smooth,

18. The shadows flow over it after being watered.
As if I, drunk on the mention of them, am sated

19. With a pleasure decorated by cups and wine.
A brother of chaste, noble revellers visited them

20. In a meadow where he passed the night watered without being robbed.
Their camels wander in it after they drank

21. Some pure, some not yet drawn.
A drink at which they sing, with basil between them

22. And each bucket-skin drawn from the hose.
You see the legs of the wine, bending

23. From every drunken tall, long-necked one.
Their spirits flow from it when filled

24. Until poured into the vessels of my companions.
The drinking-holes are all crowded, torment

25. And lack of drink will not increase for us.
They incline toward every curvy gazelle, my brother,

26. Flirts not concerned with gray hair or old age.
Youth passes, and old age takes away its joy,

27. And fate, crooked, brings wonders.
What fate seeks, its claws attain,

28. And fate pierces with the bowstring when unsought.
Are there any eminent, glorious people

29. Except the blows of fate have seized them?
Until deliberately its best ones are struck

30. By arrows of death, calamities.
I have found that the place of origin of the arrows of death

31. In every decree of fate is inscribed.
Whoever faces affliction, then relief comes after it,

32. And people are between those with spirit and those troubled.
And between one calling to guidance, his companions.

33. And between one astray and owning wealth and warred upon.
A good life is goodness whose seeker prospers,

34. And the good life of the miserly is austereness without sweetness.
Do not praise a man until you test him,

35. And do not blame him without testing.
A boy obeys one who disciplines him,

36. And an old man does not obey you, no matter how you discipline.
Predispositions in character prevail,

37. So a falcon is only gained through training.
If you travel to praise a king,

38. Then travel with poetry pure, not contrived.
Praise Yazid but do not display in praising him

39. The tinder ignited with kindling.
Talents do not restrain their journey

40. Or deviate with the voices of ravens.
The Caliph is a branch, when you trace his ancestry,

41. Free of blemishes, a protected lineage of nobility.
War and Marwan cultivated him, and their origin

42. Goes back to the virtuous, untainted roots.
Four who were our imams raised you,

43. So rightly your kingdom is not transient.
He gave you a kingdom and piety - you who steer it

44. After merits, one inspired to prophecy.
Like the full moon, your worries exalted, derived

45. From glories growing to calamities.
A sea cultivated by boundless seas -

46. Those battle cries the children of battle cries.
A people born in Mecca, in its valley,

47. The people of Mecca, not Bedouins.
Most of them, when their wave flows,

48. With every lofty-gazing lion panicking.
And the warriors among the heroes - their zeal drives them

49. To strike a deadly blow, slashing without cleaving.
You are the son of your father ‘Atikah, good-omened,

50. The mother of kings, of the distinguished family.
Whenever the kings once raced for glory,

51. The racers were driven by the hounds.
You raced the race of a purebred that had no rival,

52. Who split the hooves striking without being struck.
Easy to get along with, he who forgives people their masses,

53. Who clothes the barefoot with a slipper of hide.
Until the latecomers precede after being left behind

54. At the famine, with meat and trembling.
You give life to alliances after they waned,

55. Like rainfall giving life on a parched soul.
And you are, on a day of trial, the best of them,

56. And the most generous of people when called.
A flood of heroes whose abundance overflows,

57. A torrent benefiting the easy and difficult ground.
You see them mixed with tolerance when provoked

58. And every strong, tall hero roaring.
They carry the courage of heroes when they ride

59. Every racing steed of honest lineage.
They charge wildly when their saddle-cloths are tested

60. By every valiant hero panicking the enemy.
If they subdue and steady them when their bridles shake,

61. They seize the people in towns and suburbs.
And if they spur them with a whip or their cries,

62. The saddle-cloths boil, confusing the foe’s saddle-cloths.
Rising with them and an army like prowling wolves

63. Is every horror on what was mounted.
Until they pour out groups after assembling,

64. Terrifying and overwhelming every terrified one.
It has rams whose blow fells them,

65. While the ram of your rank goes unfelled.
Then it destroys the remnants of your enemy,

66. Who lie fallen between killer and mangled.
All together their hands were tied when captured

67. Tied back to their shoulders tightly bound.
Dazed booty which the horses thought were

68. Like a flock of sheep from Azri'at captured.
As if the wailing voices of the captive women

69. Were sounds of larks when twisted by the people.
Sheep whose leader divides them,

70. Gifted here, gifted there.