1. What makes your eyes turn to the wine glass
As your tenderness leans tipsily in youth’s intoxication

2. Why not mix its drink for your lovers
With the coolness of your injustice or the sweetness of your glance

3. But I have no claim over you, having declared my love
Hoping to gain favour through pleasing you

4. It was unfair that the echo hurt me
While the innocent pole won your affection

5. Alas for your tenderness, time itself
Seems clad in the green of your youth

6. However long the night, it shortens its length
Come to me while the guardian is inattentive, here you are

7. Often has the breeze confided in me, so my own complaints
Moved you, requiring your complaints

8. If you befriend slumber in the home of sleepiness
Then long have you been averse to me

9. Or if you hide in the companionship of the few
Then how often have I made lawful the way to be near you

10. As for my soul’s wish, it is all you
Would that I were part of your wishes

11. When the anxiety of his visit draws near
A concern with which I could kiss your mouth

12. If you avoid my guidance out of betrayal
None but you do I love in error

13. The Caliph Abu Al-Walid has excellent qualities
Like a garden made joyous by the weeping clouds

14. A king who rules time, refined in his rule
His governance of the kingdom is excellent rule

15. He followed his father after he missed the opportunity
So he succeeded between loss and attainment

16. The sun of daytime, its full moon and stars
Are his sons, some manifest, some concealed

17. The happy ones seek out the flowers of stars
Among them are those who illuminate the darkest shadows

18. Good tidings to you, O world, and good tidings to us together
This minister Abu Al-Walid is decisive

19. Sovereignty is attained, then if you lose it
Whenever you lose the cypress tree, there it is

20. And when you hear of one in whom
All the virtues among people are gathered, that is him

21. A piercing sword, a lofty pillar,
A generous hand, a ripper of injustice

22. Frank, open-handed, and ignorant is he
Who attempts to extract fire with churning

23. The making of conscience, when postponing the subjugated
He gives it respite, hastening or delaying

24. He threaded eloquence in the lines of his writings
Like threading pearls on a necklace

25. Time challenged his efforts, saying
“You have attained every virtue, so enough!”

26. The roses in their bed, sprinkled by dew
Are not adorned except by some of your splendor

27. Likewise, musk is not fragrant in its aroma
Except with a trace of your name

28. The only delight is the mention of you, not the singing of one repeated,
Tempting in licence or restraint

29. A tremor came over your loyal friends
That melted the hearts of your enemies in sorrow

30. O you moon whose brilliance
Is envied by the orbiting celestial spheres

31. Rejoice in leadership, now that you hold its reins
Like the joy of the bride in the validity of marriage

32. Whoever says you are not alone in virtue
And righteous deeds has fallen into polytheism

33. Appoint me to the good opinion, for it
Is enough for my day, beauty and struggle

34. And when events speak slander to me
Say to them, “Away with you!”

35. His face frowns with determination at calamities and ill manners
The smiling, sociable, deadly serious one

36. The honor of Darī‘, which increased,
When it was disgraced by despicable and prolonged siege

37. To the shining sun, sleep is a screen
And the eyelid is home to the deadly keen glance

38. Your health, which if it were
A person I conversed with, I would say to it, “Congratulations!”

39. May your life last for as long as you continue
And so you live on after death through your achievements