1. To you from an exalted angel and from a sublime king,
Our ship was a ladder to the heavens,

2. So we won by kissing a land you tread upon,
The fishes saw it, the highest of their kind.

3. And lower your tent beaten down about the moon,
Since it is but woven from webs.

4. And pull over the clouds if they close in around you,
The trailing trains of your pouring robes.

5. With your unsheathed sword you struck such battle
That it did not make your name one struck on the roads.

6. Naught is insignificant with your might save the high-sailing,
Nor blood from a foe save your own blood spilled.

7. He ransoms you who was never lowered in degree,
And was never beneath it, slipping down in worth.

8. Good fortune established you above the moon in station,
So that it cannot detach itself from its cycle.

9. And he of the crown remains, as you command him,
O you of piercing glances, interceded for by the beloved.

10. The prey came near you in fear that you would hunt them
When you hurled the idolaters into the pit.

11. You were intimate with destruction when you were impassioned by it;
Religion did not make you forget the sanctity of devotion.

12. You left, after Bilal, every excellence,
That was the best that remained of your inheritance.

13. And the kingdom made you capable, O Gentle One, for it,
After it had almost despaired of ruin.

14. You laid low under its mounts every arrogant one,
The intrepid rider unseated from his mare.

15. The fortresses are yours - and if they were inaccessible,
What lies between destroyer and destroyed.

16. The reins of command flung themselves to you in them,
With raids of an attacker, grappling in earnest.

17. They saw your sword - it did not smile at them
Except to make them weep violently from laughing.

18. So they surrendered to peaceful coexistence with you
Aiming their army away from you and battle.

19. They could not attain your lofty ambition nor gain your heights -
So what fault lies with them if they fear you and your might?

20. It gives the two rulers joy that the kingdom continues unbroken
Until the kings of earth rise for the King.

21. Two moons came from the Highest with something in common -
From the heights over them is each partaker.

22. So whenever they alone partake in what distinguishes them,
We come with one distinguished among them and partaking.

23. O you who brings renewed news of days gone by,
Say - and do not stint - from their glory, other than your own.

24. The attributes of Zurei's house raised up their growth,
And so their envious enemies spent the night in misery.

25. The kingdom is a sun - and were it not for the helping hand
It would have been eclipsed like that sun in its decline.

26. The forbearing are assailed with stillness for its sake,
And malice is assailed with stillness from it, by its motion.

27. In the implement of might - and days are mighty -
If you doubt, then ask the outspread earth.

28. And say to those who inherited that their lifetimes' work
Did effort in exultation and zeal exhaust you?

29. This is the firm handhold for whoever grasps it,
Glory - so it did not snap in the hand of one who held to it.

30. This is the sea - its gifts were not neglected,
And it is a sea, whether one draws from it or leaves it.

31. The rain did not scratch its pouring generosity,
And the meadow did not scratch the like of what you scratched in it.

32. Poetry - it is musk intoxicating us, a rending of its pods,
Flowing without reserve in the cheeks when

33. Nothing else is pure, mixed on the palette.