1. One day he said to his black servant
Joking in the midst of their gathering:

2. "Scratch my testicles a little, with pleasure,
Then let out a loud fart

3. Of tremendous impact."
He said: By God, he conveyed it well!

4. I said: Taste it, for it is
An obscenity that knows language.

5. It is a marvel among marvels that captivates
Every mind and pleases every eye.

6. It combines beauty and wit until
No true describer can fully describe it.

7. A wineskin the Caliph had chosen
Unlike any left by his ancestors.

8. It restrains love with its sweetness, though it is
Sweeter, and no letter can rival it.

9. Refined from purified essence in nature
Not with alchemy of an apothecary.

10. Eyes penetrate it until they see themselves
Mistaken, from the delicate transparency.

11. Like air without haze, made subtle
With luminosity - purer and clearer!

12. Its waist did not grow big with successive drafts
Nor did it shrink from a sip.

13. No rashness against minds - rather gentle
With them, not weakness.

14. It gratifies the drinkers as they drink
And the melodies of every drinking horn and flute.

15. The beholders never saw a shape and form
Like a steed’s belly beneath its saddlecloth.

16. When people drink it their palms do not refrain
From fondling it respectfully.

17. Whenever they saw it, this gentle one
Was not previously so underestimated.

18. The eye prefers to enjoy it
When the critic tells the beholder: close your eye!

19. In it is a fermented Nun whose inflection
The wise vintners bent most excellently.

20. Like the bending of the cheeks in the faces
Of a gazelle adorned with beauty and charm.

21. I have stored it for you for emergencies -
Sufficient for you at every time of need.

22. So enjoy it and live happily
A thousand years - and I won't be pleased with a thousand!

23. For I have rolled up my sleeves
And will reproach you with shuffling steps:

24. Is it justice that I and others
Are deprived of your gifts between mansion and valley?

25. He whose praise the people repeat far and wide
From you received abundant generosity.

26. You promised I would have your exclusive eulogy,
O son of Yahya - but that is a crumbling design!

27. The dedications I made will not please you,
You who sends them out and seals them!

28. A eulogy of you I protected with all protection
Beneath the cloak of my compositions.

29. Some of it has appeared and some remains guarded
Waiting for the occasion of revelation.

30. Do not deny imaginations of you that have become
Dazzling, snatched by every blinking eye.

31. A trinket or bauble, O son of Yahya,
Could console me, cooling my passion.

32. Toss me a wing, or point out a place for me
That has become for you an abandoned ruin.

33. As for reproaching the blamer, I
Subdue all my reproaches.

34. Saying about you to the enemy words
That humble and compel him against his will.

35. "This questioner - isn't he excellent?
I am delighted by him" - so I ask and scruple.

36. For Ali, at the peak of glory, there is a house
Roofed by none but the sky.

37. His generosity built it to the stars
Destroying wealth by aggression and tyranny.

38. O people! How his generosity builds
While it is a flood - and every flood demolishes!

39. If mountains were wealth or the sea
He would annihilate them by pulverizing and bleeding.

40. Do you see him, while his wealth is none but plunder,
Or see him, while his prestige is none but endowment?

41. He does not see a whiff of honor but
A grasping hand snatches it.

42. The slander of blame was tossed from him
Into the heart of every marching escort.

43. So he is whatever you wish, from cowardly to brave,
Trusting, though the timid quake.

44. Bold against arms, armored with coats of mail
Against the slightest twanging of a bowstring.

45. He avoids the breath of tongues but is overwhelmed
By every stab and blow of a sword.

46. Ali accepts the shortchanging of praise,
And measures reward to fulfill it completely.

47. We do not fabricate in praising him, but describe
Some of his traits - and that suffices.

48. If we praised him with what is not in him
The praise would fall short of what he deserves.

49. Rather, we were like the musk-gatherers, in knowledge
Of his scent, not the places of better scent.

50. We have in his praise nothing but verse
Describing the efforts he made.

51. This is my absence in spite of an enemy
Who twists his ear away from it.

52. And in spite of the distractions that distracted me
Completely diverting me away.

53. For whoever takes you as his refuge, it suffices
To have you in adversities as every refuge.