1. For whom are the tents and from whence are they descending?
Are they from Rabee'ah or perhaps from Wa'il?

2. Your soul has lied to you, but rather they are feverish shelters,
A people who possess the mention of Tubba` worn out.

3. These are the tents of Banu Haashim around which
Are dwellings filled with eyes, homes and water springs,

4. And settlements, date palms, crowds,
Cauldrons, open plains, and caravans.

5. The perfume of musk for them has erect stature,
It invades hearts thereby, and a glance shoots arrows.

6. And of wonders we see a fallen corpse,
Seeking confrontation, yet the killer flees from him.

7. I would ransom the veiled one beyond whom
My tears have a barrier, a curtain hanging down.

8. O how often Umaymah turned away a suitor!
Should not this suitor today be turned away?

9. O gazelle in the enclosure, it is right to hunt her,
Yet she hunts us violently and does not cajole.

10. She has no arrows but her glances with which
She hits her prey, and no snares but the branches.

11. You are the most beautiful above all beautiful ones,
So the truth is you while all of them are false.

12. My excuse in loving you is established so I have
No one to blame save envious slanderers.

13. I love you without shame because I
Love the noble, so what can the sayer say?

14. I practiced the ethics of the forbearing so time
Betrayed me, equating to the morals of the fool.

15. And I abandoned the traits of the ignorant so I was suspected
Of ignorance since I opposed his desires.

16. And if a word of praise comes to me from an ignorant one,
It is dispraise to me that I am ignorant.

17. I sought loyalty from time and its people
Yet I gained from them what the miser gives.

18. And I asked about the blemishes of affection so I was told:
"Wait! It is as if you have forgotten Muhammad."

19. That friend - even if his abode is far
From us and time has come between as a separator.

20. Indeed the son of your love is one who sees you in his heart,
Not one who sees you with his eyes and so woos.

21. My heart has been fettered from afar
With love to those lines - chains.

22. The heart knows they are gems
While the eye claims they are but letters.

23. The keen, intelligent poet, the eloquent
Refined, delicate, and virtuous writer.

24. In his white palm there is a stylus of vigilance
With which the disasters play with eloquences.

25. Sweet of jest and poetry, refined,
His pens are bees and nightingales.

26. If the Nile's water were bitter and turbid,
It would be sweetened by his breaths and features.

27. Before him all glory is insignificant,
An ocean to him while all seas are shores.

28. He bestows honors on us voluntarily
While the honors are obligatory and supererogatory.

29. Between me and you O Muhammad there is a distance
To which caravans undertake journeys in the lands.

30. And the distances of homelands are no harm
If there is no separation between hearts.

31. Alexandria boasted in having you,
So its joy became apparent by signs.

32. If there are necklaces in Upper Egypt’s valley,
Then the valley of capitals is not without.

33. O Kaaba of literature to which
Tribes of poetry from every terrain made pilgrimage.

34. You have drowned us altogether in the sea of your merit,
It is as if we are an example and you the result.

35. We have come to you with foolish verses,
Were it not for you, homes would not have been built for them.

36. Damascene, their meanings deficient, even if
A sea of eloquence gifted their wording.

37. How many are the poets when you count them
In series, but the eminent ones are few.