1. Tell spring to draw back the fullness of its clouds,
And drag its torrents through the course of my sorrows,

2. Lest my tears flowing copiously towards you
Outlast you, mingled with profuse weeping.

3. And a youth whose breath to you is exemplary
Should your burden be heavy with the striking cloud,

4. And mingle the fragrance of my greeting abundantly with life
And make it the watering of my loved ones and darlings.

5. A pact like your pact with covenants that have long
Clad my loyalists and playmates in coats of mail,

6. And head for Cordova and embrace its soil
In my name with my whole heart’s fervor and passion,

7. Where my dwellings yielded to desolation
And the apple of my heart’s core fell to ruin,

8. Humbled, subjected to the darkness with abasement
And despondent, cowardly before the valiant hero.

9. And stars that drew near in their sorrowful vigils
Fulfilled their weeping at the setting of the vanished sun

10. For every grief-stricken one, parted from a departing loved one
Whose hopes were not cheered by the coming of one awaited

11. The delusive lightning of wishes lied to the truthful one
About his supposition, and proved the liar truthful

12. Misfortunes that scourged the night with an incurable plague
And misery that befell it with an unremitting stroke,

13. Their hearts frozen above the rubble,
Every heart melting above its ruins

14. Their eyes eluding them, so they displayed
Eyes shedding their blood like shooting stars

15. Their means were severed by a fatal swoon
And the epochs fettered them with recurved fetters

16. Seeking the marvels of an estranged land, but whenever
The lands approach, they find no marvels.

17. They attached themselves to the means of heaven, so they were granted
Everlasting life among the celestial bodies and stars,

18. And time made ready the water of their youth
For the stooping of an aged back or a graying head.

19. They made their pact for all endless perpetuity, though remoteness
Remove the oaths of an accompanying comrade and requiting confidante

20. No sea ever donned armor and clashed its billows
With deadly ripples and passionate waves,

21. Ruin upon ruin and shedding of blood, blood
The hunchback with sympathy, the upright with accord

22. Blossoms whose dawns for each morrow are morrows
And whose wages depend on the passing yesterday,

23. With it the green pigeons sing while its lot
Is the crested curlew with its woeful cry,

24. I made it the adornment of the land which abandoned me
And clothed it in the age which despoiled me.

25. I filled minds with wonders about them
Though my share of perfecting my wonders fell short.

26. Dead are my hopes, while the Messiah inherits me,
Reviving my ruins and perpetuating my virtues

27. With exiles on earth other than homes
And stars in the sky other than settings

28. And I have fulfilled my youthful passion to the full
Which in turn fulfilled my distant hopes,

29. I sufficed it with fine patience, so it revealed
The fair consequences of the house of Yaḥyā,

30. And I sealed its conclusion, so it opened up
The narrow straits with the virtues of al-Manṣūr,

31. Will you then, O spring days, inform
My beloved and dear ones in the Maghrib

32. That spring for me is the attribute of an inhabitant
And the clouds’ life for me is the habit of one who lingers

33. The fragrance of the meadows from the diffusion of my abodes
The copious clouds from the surplus of my drinking-places

34. It goes perfumed with the breath of my features
And returns at dawn exacting my tribute

35. It rises to gather the unique beauty of my charms
And sets to reap the choice rarities of my wonders

36. It lodges spreading flowers over the plains and hills
That inform about you, that you are my composer

37. From the luxuriance which the gardens of my orchards exude
And whose essence the clouds of my cisterns pour down

38. So I threaded them into each rising horizon
And sent them with every piercing star

39. And - O Manṣūr - I threaded your mention among them
Like stringing beads on a necklace’s string

40. A mention atop minds nobler than any lodging
And over the wastelands of earth clearer than any rider

41. Ramparts for your glory, raised by signs
The standards of my courtesy and mention of my virtues

42. With openings from every current eulogy
And conclusions from every passing praise

43. So the two realms coveted the discourse of the most eloquent poet
And the world screamed for the most articulate suitor

44. I then discoursed while fate was part of my pulpits
And aspired while the galaxy was part of my battles

45. I wrote of it scriptures for the nights
Which the tongues of enduring time recite

46. Until I made the glory of your kingdom present
In every region, absent from your lands,

47. And I revealed your exemplar to the world amidst the clamor
Strutting between mounted warriors and sailing ships

48. And I showed you to the humble nations crowned
With sièges and wreathed with brigades

49. I lifted the veil of night from you for one who departs, approaches, distances or draws near
Until they saw your brilliance beneath the darkness

50. Like a vision to one who travels in a dreamer's imagination
A flier in the tumult of the fray with arrivals

51. Like arrivals, retinues and riders like mounts
Until the son of Shanj, humbled on the day he wronged you

52. Hastens to you in repentance, a guilty sinner
After he had plundered the lands and could find

53. No refuge from your abode, a fleeing escapee
And saw weakness in rising against you, the best ally

54. And saw fleeing to you as the safest companion
He called upon you confessing the humiliation of a sinner

55. And came to you clothed in the habit of a monk
My prospects became visible during your protection

56. When my exile overwhelmed my sunsets
So you sealed my long tribulation by welcoming me

57. And rewarded the strangeness of my plight with hopes
You saved me from every impending misfortune

58. To the point of despairing hope's frustration
I found succor for my needs in your presence

59. And solace for my sorrows and cure from my afflictions
The feast truly manifested itself to you in a lovely

60. Radiance, for misfortunes and calamities
Your eyebrow which you engendered proceeds before you

61. Like the sun when it shone its eyebrow at you
In a scene with the brilliance of your forehead beaming

62. Beaming with soft hair and braided locks
A lovely sight challenging the slanderers with blades

63. Strutting between suitors and respondents
Until you ascended the throne of your kingdom, surrounded

64. By the light of joy on all sides
And you extended for kissing a beneficent palm

65. Whose fingers sip from the oceans of gifts
It almost cries out about you, “Is there one who craves?

66. Or a monk, or a fearful one, or a seeker?”
So submit and be the last cultivator of the earth

67. And for the vanquisher of foes, the first vanquisher