1. One day we passed in joy and pleasure
Exchanging elegant conversation

2. With faithful friends, free of any disdain
Their virtues unfeigned, their manners refined

3. They drank the cup of harmony, no conflict in their words or deeds
We gathered around a blessed pond, pure its water

4. As gentle as our refined characters, free of pretense
We swam in it, ducks eluded our swimming

5. A fountain lamenting with copious tears
The east wind passions it with yearning

6. Though eyes may be weary of its flowing tears
Its sides are not straitened from its weeping

7. It wept and showed us fate smiling when it wept
It wailed and roused the ring-necked doves

8. In the gardens' midst we made a cubic pavilion
Like a necklace around a neck or a crown on a head

9. The brilliant sun peeks at us slyly
Casting through its windows rays that mimic

10. Embroidered silk's engraved patterns
When its rays meet the water, the walls shine so brightly

11. Shadows dance as the water sparkles under the breeze
It sets, and the moon keeps guard over us

12. Lest we separate, though perforce pulled west
Soon it will rise again in the east

13. How wondrous, the two lights yearn for us
While whoever we prohibit does not yearn

14. No wonder, forms yearn for their forms
And are devoted to them with strong attachment

15. We have a gathering of faithful friends
As if they had drunk cups of cordiality, sans affectation

16. Planets whose abode is now in the heavens
Ever rising to loftier nobility

17. A sanctified, sublime breath wafts our senses
With pure musk's exquisite scent

18. However we pass the cups of their discourse
We are intoxicated with something yet more sublime

19. A conversation enrapturing minds and forms
Flawless, enthralling listener and onlooker alike

20. The nobility of religion embodied all virtues
Say whatever good you will, you speak the truth

21. Molded in a man of excellent traits
Beneficent, true to his word

22. He ties hopes with freely-flowing wealth
And unites our scattered group with his munificence

23. Concerned lest he meet a reproachful friend
While he abounds, he is not miserly

24. He exceeds frugality with generosity
And overlooks a vulgarian's crudeness

25. His enemies cannot get the better of him
Nor can his detractors make him lose face

26. His lineage points to sanctity, to purification
From everything disreputable and vile

27. His scholarly authority is established for us
By scripture, consensus, and the verified view

28. A spirit converses with him through sciences
While others take refuge in patched-up speech

29. All knowledge is inscribed in his mind
Most generously, with a radiant pen

30. The various branches matched his intellect's mirror
Each genre embodied and realized

31. His intuition exhausted others' perception
His reflection surpassed every solver

32. He has an eloquence that illuminates meaning
Like a bright star in the dark night sky

33. Poetry like flowers in a well-kept garden
Prose like tumbling cascade or palm of a cloud

34. A mind as if fire sprang from it
Were it not for his composure, one who came near would burn

35. Generosity as if clouds learned from him
Without his brilliance, the giver would drown

36. Steadfast as a mountain, open-handed as the sea
Problems disappear through him, no longer problems

37. Obscurities become clear, no longer obscure
His eloquence silences blusterers mired in a quandary

38. He facilitates what was difficult, and his manners
Always delight us, however sullen

39. When Muhammad's verses are recited to people
Every listening ear inclines to hear, rapt

40. He composes marvels of ornate verse
Vanquishing the compositions of every fabricator

41. Ibn Musa's Ali was a helper made triumphant
Who brought gleams of song like pure gems

42. And created unprecedented compositions for both worlds
Joining creativity with elegance

43. There was something missing, so the son of Musa
Came to complete it with coherent speech

44. His poetry resembles Jarir's, as though he
Had contended with Farazdaq's prosody

45. If you do not recognize him, he is undoubtedly its peer
Who suffered for Layla's love like the one who suffered

46. They created for her in the mind the most perfect
Of images, refined meaning and eloquent wording

47. But were stingy lest an unworthy lad attain her
And show generosity he does not possess

48. How they lost sleep and pined for her
Whoever loves Layla remains sleepless and restless

49. They did not profess it, but both were made
To drink from a draft of love at night, pure wine

50. To part from her is time, and her light appeared
From Andalusia to the holy city, rising high

51. The secret reality Layla symbolized attained happiness and misery
How many a perplexed one it frustrated, though he never reached her

52. How many a misguided one it exposed, though he glittered
He saw a moon become a sun, and it deceived him

53. The change of hue in her pure radiance and grace
That was but the blush of shyness

54. Vanishing in intimacy and approach
I am not like Layla, nor my son, nor his son

55. The peer of Ali or the upright Muhammad
Ali resembles Muhammad in character

56. Doubtless he was given the bounty he was given
Truly, Ali is to pleased Muhammad

57. As Aaron to Moses in speaking truth
How many white hands have come to us through him

58. And the son of Musa enriched each empty pretender
O palm tree of virtue, your origin is pure

59. Your shade-giving branches extend to us
Munificence from you has reached many people, and singled me out

60. The unworthy think they are your peers
Because they have mimicked you, but the sincere are wrong

61. Is a bare desert pebble likened
To a sea swarming with knowledge, reposing treasures?

62. That is an ignorant man boasting of knowledge
And one of noble lineage clinging to the virtuous

63. Who sees stinginess as praise, and ostentation as rank
So treat him with more generosity, tolerant one

64. Have they not observed your humility and nobility?
Like clouds pouring forth, lightning flashing

65. They repel gentleness like the blue of doves
While circling over it, but the rosy is not like the circler

66. So take praise of Muhammad from a helper
And leave the saying of blind A'sha, circler of ashes

67. I refused my companions by praising you
And refused praise of every exhausted one for them

68. Meanings and lofty words came to me suddenly
Seething in my breast, surge after surge

69. So I thought: who am I, a composer?
I conversed with them, chose and picked out

70. I shun rough, densely packed speech
And avoid refined, gently flowing speech

71. When one line passes, its peer follows swiftly
Even if I do not let another catch up

72. Thought is not jaded, nor poetry obscure
But like the sea, when it rages, it calms

73. It's as if the rhymes knew who has
The gift of composing, so they came forth, the gifted raced

74. Gleaming pearls appeared for us out of their separation
For the threaded pearls adorn poetry after dispersal

75. I found poetry's harmony until it was as if
I drew from the sea of your knowledge, water of generosity

76. This eloquence flows only because it contains
Praise of the generous man of eloquence

77. I offer you this poetry like one who comes
With a bouquet to one with abundant water, about to drown

78. By my spirit, your holy spirit came to breathe
And my spirit rose to you through the spirit

79. May God make an era where no virtuous one
Attains any good but some paltry subsistence

80. An age where the lowly rise like the lofty
Sink - the people of realization and conviction

81. Authority's hand is ever fond of you
And you alone wear the robe of every helper

82. Is one like you stripped of his sublime virtues?
Rightfully, whoever lacks equivalence precedes

83. Truly, were you his confidante
It would be masterfully crafted and profound

84. The most eloquent scholar would have expressed its meaning
Concisely or in elaborate prose

85. You refrained from pursuing that out of precedence
Blessed, while others were miserable

86. Glory lies only in being free of baseness
Humility only in parity with the crudest

87. The two lights yearned for us, but whoever we prohibited did not yearn
No wonder forms yearn for their forms

88. And are devoted to them with strong attachment
We have a gathering of faithful friends

89. As if they had drunk cordial cups, free of airs
Planets whose abode is now in the highest heavens

90. Ever rising to the loftiest eminence
A sanctified, sublime breath wafts our senses

91. With pure musk's exquisite fragrance
However we pass the cups of their discourse

92. We are intoxicated with something yet more sublime
A conversation enrapturing minds and forms

93. Flawless, enthralling listener and onlooker alike