1. Sham has appeared to you adorned,
Her smiling lips have shone radiantly.

2. The birds sang amongst her gardens in turn
Greetings and peace to you from them.

3. The voice of the breeze in front of the sun's brow
This is a gesture, that is speech.

4. She witnessed your arrival, O Ibn Thabit
Do dreams of Ibn Al-Harith return?

5. O poet, while fate cheats some of its storytellers
The tribes have become envious of you.

6. Genius has a stamp on your poetry
And the insignia of brilliance upon it.

7. A sacred breath has shone from it
Revelation and inspiration led to it.

8. It is as if meaning were sweet wine
And the words transparently in a cup.

9. You pictured for us the traitorous eyes and what
The hearts conceal and inspiration discerns.

10. Taken from permitted sorcery you breathed into it
As if at the melody of song it is wine.

11. You attained from the zenith of immortality a rank
After which the pyramids have no more ambition.

12. The bond of poetry in you has grown strong, and for long
Illnesses have beset its body.

13. You construct from verses each stronghold
Meet for founding and consolidating.

14. In each verse a young gazelle yielding to you
While joining with her is forbidden you.

15. It is as if in the verse a flower rises radiantly
While around her are wraps.

16. You told of the Divine Essence with all that
Minds cannot encompass of its perception.

17. And you revealed the secret of the soul, while it is veiled,
The speculations of its essence went astray.

18. The astute mind of the Chief, my father,
Turned away while it was in a stupor.

19. By my father and mother, Egypt, what a peerless
Imam she brought forth in you, as imam desired!

20. So gather its scattered group, perhaps
The pens will take the place of its swords.

21. How many a sublime rank you attained
When feet slipped in an occasion.

22. Precious Egypt and Sham are to the viceroy
Passion and love that joined them.

23. By God, she broke no covenant, nor
Did the bridle fail Egypt in Sham.

24. Since the covenant of Amr no glorious one
Reigned in Egypt but Sham shared her rule.

25. Behold, in Damascus you will find that with which
The eloquent pen is bewildered, and the artist.

26. The two Ghoutas surround it, both of them,
Concealing the meadows within them.

27. The prison of their reaching out in longing
To an ardently desiring beloved, so the bond was completed.

28. The two Ghoutas upon a face of polished beauty
Are at dawn a wrapper of silk.

29. The morning sun wove its threads for it
With graces and arrows upon them.

30. And the moon clothed it in a white loincloth
Of its light, as if it were sacral dress.

31. Was there a branch in the thickets of Jallaq
A flute, and the breaths of the breeze, a tune?

32. It is God’s choicest in His earth,
So how can I blame it if I pour forth to it?

33. Khalil roamed around it and blessed its environs.
Noah sighed for it, and Sam made residence there.

34. The pillar of firmly rooted glory
Was from Qasioun a summit and high place.

35. Arise, and assume the office of caliphate, it has
Fallen by the course of time into surrender.

36. Wander in its retreats and hallow its precincts,
It is meet to hallow and honor it.

37. What has thrilled the verdant, its branch quivering,
And its handsome and lofty expanse filled with mist?

38. As if in its horizon the era of Caliph Omar
And Imam Hisham never shone forth.

39. Make more precious to the Caliphs the abasement of their lands
Even if they are beneath the dust, decomposed.

40. Say to him whose governance encompassed the world,
Its eras have become too narrow for us.

41. And turn with reverence to Abu al-Muzaffar’s tomb,
Did not his efforts ennoble Islam?

42. Say to him who overcame events with his might,
“We are in the hands of events, overpowered.”

43. Jallaq was bereaved by loss of the crown, and folded up
After being spread out, the flags scattering.

44. The moon, how disconsolate is its eclipse
On a brilliant night, at its fullest phase!

45. Shawqi, I take refuge, pleading,
With you, if blame and testing afflict me.

46. Who can speak, while you are present,
Is not the course of his affair ambiguity?

47. You came forward where every eloquent one feared,
A boy may ride the formidable situation.

48. O you venerable gathering, honoring one
Whose like idols were honored aforetimes.

49. I bid you welcome, greet a sanctuary,
You arose for peace, so greet in return.