1. O throbbing heart beside me
You have become absent though present

2. Join your family in Iraq and leave me
In Damascus with my family for you are not my companion

3. Your charm has captivated men’s hearts but you were not
Smitten by eyes and eyebrows

4. You offered but not with a drinking cup
So you got drunk but not with a drinker’s wine

5. You tasted passion undiluted and not all passion
Does the youth find in it the way to blame

6. Love of the generous is honour for the lover
And the brilliance of the sought is the seeker’s glory

7. The Ummayad pole star of his time has parted from you
Though close in image to the intimate

8. Continuous traces followed his writings
As testimony for the writer as clear as sunshine

9. This is an imam, mention of him
Has spread between east and west

10. And if he came late in time he is still
A decades’ master for the reckoner

11. We picked rare gems from the seas of his poetry
Arranged in a creation of penetrating mind

12. In every restless rhyme his verse
Struck for him intrinsic chords

13. He praised beautifully one accustomed to hearing him
Though necessarily and fittingly

14. He praised as was deserved so it was as if
He gifted us from himself with virtues

15. An honour whose style I wore so it shook me
In wonder beyond my ranks’ beyond

16. When I claim I make that my witness
And when I pride I make that my cause

17. O healer of the broken heart with his gentleness
What do you see in the matter of a melting heart

18. Passion still keeps it seated, makes it stand
Like the verb between prefixes and suffixes

19. Return a heart you have snatched from me
For return is the judgement on the usurper

20. What it allowed me I did not permit but
The Iraq wait so it is not valid for the granter

21. My longing for one my eyes did not see
In a land my mounts did not tread

22. For his sake I loved the Iraq’s Zoraa
And for its sake the regions of that side

23. The right of love is for hearts so I saw
Love of faces over it a false glance

24. And if a brow comes before an eye
There a heart that cannot be averted by a brow

25. I ransom you, O you for whose love
I have no merit, that is a clear blow

26. You were excellent in word and deed, excelling
And both are for the soul the greatest pull

27. You are he who attained success by grace
From a Provider who gives whom He will without reckoning

28. So if you compose you are the most eloquent poet
And if you write you are the most eloquent speaker

29. And if you look it is with a piercing star
And if you think it is with a cutting blade

30. And if you have dark moles on your cheeks they are
Like black on the flanks of a wild doe

31. This is a messenger from me to you and would that I
Were the messenger from her in the absence of a deputy

32. A Damascene from Jesus' family she came
Under Ummayad protection in dwellings

33. A virgin, shyness makes her shrink in awe
And longing drives her like the driving of gazelles

34. She inclined to the Euphrates water but did not know
How many riders its rapids have drowned

35. She is the remainder from the treasures of the non-Arabs
She meets the remainder of the generous Arabs

36. Of every eminent poet it pours as if
Al-Farazdaq was spread in Tameem for Ghalib

37. What can a short one accomplish though he strain
In a range the arrows of Salih's bow shorten

38. So for you is beauty when you excuse and if you blame
Then you have hit right and the blameless is not reproached