1. Would that I had hunted a gazelle of the hunter
And gathered the slender branch of its bending stature

2. And sipped a draught of Kauthar in essence
And tasted the ring of its kindling cheek

3. And inhaled a rose of Paradise in a garden
That had blushed with the blood of livers

4. And those cheeks flowed down white in the morning
So their freckles showed on the meadows

5. And the lashes watched intently from them and beamed
Their glances from the eyeshades

6. Quivering from beneath the waistband because she’s
A bough on a hillock of hillocks

7. A chaste maiden, heavy breasted
And resplendent, dyed in blackness

8. Her anklets spoke and the sound of her necklace
And her glances stooped over the ponds

9. A gazelle, graceful of neck and glance
And shying from the plain of hunters

10. What harm if the eyelids met with a glance
And I joined them with my passion and heart

11. O you, the one who visited us, young man
How can we find the way to the tryst?

12. Is it chivalrous for you to sleep while my eye
Has filled its rims with ashes?

13. And the thirsty gazelles of my eyes spend the night suffering
And the thirsty wings of my heart call out?

14. And you sleep above the bedding, secure
With each limb in a goblet of wine?

15. Suppose I’m called al-Husayn in your abode
Are you, my Master, the son of Yazid?

16. Then bid farewell kindly to the heart, for it
Is like a bird fallen in the fowler’s hand

17. And have mercy on eyelids that know no anguish
As if lined with kohl and antimony

18. You paired virtues with the beauties
As perfection paired with peaks of glory

19. O excellent son of the excellent
Son of the chosen, Sayyid of Sayyids

20. The essence of nobility, its branch and pillar
And its lasting light until the end of time

21. Of an Arab, Qurashi, Alawi lineage
Ancestral, prophetic origins

22. Kneaded with the water of virtue until pure
And leavened with knowledge and guidance

23. Thus crystallized within us stars of guidance
Among whom is none but a guiding imam

24. Their radiance filled existence and still does
As the fathers included them for the sons

25. And through the House of Fakhr their light gathered
Until the light reigned in Baghdad

26. Pure white of spirit, immaculate in account
Quintessence of steeds and cream of nobles

27. Their affair is only to seek intimacy
And the prizes of hunters and meadows

28. And to study the noble knowledge in its time
A time to be reverent and a time for justice

29. A rain of bounty, deadly poison in their day
One day of bounty and one of pursuit

30. From each fiery leader, vigilant
His flames rise without flint

31. Were it not for the coolness of his forbearance and dignity
His encounter would melt every solid thing

32. For Abdullah a position was built within them
It towered over homeland and foreigner alike

33. He established it with knowledge and subtleties
And set its pinnacle without pillars

34. A sea of knowledge in every science, his own
Sweet flowing springs and each art has its caller

35. His virtues written on every page
And his glories streamed from every pen

36. He has affection for the weak at his gates
Like the affection of a father for his children

37. And he clasps the noble white-haired knowledge
With which we give drink in times of distress

38. And he spirits away in the books of hadith, his tears
Above the lines like passing clouds

39. Such is the affair of Muhammad's House and the sons of al-Ridha
A sea of bounty and shrine of pilgrimage

40. Your pardon, O Father of Bounty, for a eulogy
That has not approached your peerlessness

41. It stumbled in the robe of its inadequacy so set for it
A head above its contemporaries and critics

42. And spread its gift banner and with it break
An army of foes and enviers

43. It is a treasure but since entering your home
It has become one of the nobles

44. So congratulate yourself on your feast—through you, my Master
It surpasses past ones of the holidays

45. From the light of your face it glimpsed a flash
So for Shawwal it became a visible crescent

46. Were it not for you, a feast would grieve the people
O you who are guide to the misguided

47. You granted, O Ramadan, in his return, a continuation
Enduring to the tryst

48. And well-being enveloped in nobility
Its links joined, chain to chain

49. And make, my God, his good fortune the happiest
And make likewise the rest of the children

50. And make their enemy a prisoner of their swords
Until no rain drips or singer sings