1. When the clouds are split by lightning’s flash,
And pour down gently streaming rain,

2. Its gleamings weave a garden’s light,
As never woven before so bright.

3. Your land has given from west horizon,
The best of lands your dwelling’s site.

4. If you’re miserly no link nor tie remains,
Save yearning shadows who are your visitors.

5. The wandering moon was hard for me to tell,
His rising from your image, gleaming, straying.

6. He vied with the full moon in beauty and grace,
Meeting him too in timing and in place.

7. The night has passed and I have not attained
My wants of meeting nor my goal prepaid.

8. Now I glance toward your love which does enhance,
A newer, stronger passion and remembrance.

9.
So long my years in youthful folly strayed,

10. And in this love my madness was arrayed.
A passion I would cure with a passion yet,

11. As fire’s extinguished by a fiercer fire lit.
For this world's beauty God made rich increase,

12. A chosen king for a king whose might stood peace.
Matched among Abbas’ sons though they excel,

13. In famed bright stars and moons they parallel.
Dawn's sun shows watered silk's resplendence,

14. When it would flash within a robe's presence.
You gave the best estate after misery

15. Ended, and ease after adversity.
You saved them, trusted one of God, from being torn

16. Asunder, while they verged on ruin, waste, and scorn.
In Ibn Yazdad contentment more progresses,

17. Him they sought for justice which progresses.
He turned back wrongs, so the weak were refreshed,

18. Those wrongs with which oppressors' claws were fleshed.
Physicians despair of a folk whose war

19. Made blood flow from the slash of fangs and claw.
A governor pleasing you in all endeavor

20. Seeking good counsel, prompt to judge and deliver.
So God preserve Abdullah His righteous slave,

21. For he shows gentleness and thick-streaming flood.
His works are virtuous in my eyes forever,

22. As is my praise of him in verse and endeavor.
Lo, Abu Salih, the sea relates itself

23. To your bounty, in torrents and rain that pelt.
Your open-handedness and your collected full

24. Are narrated in surge and in streamful.
Shall I be wary of time or fear its changes,

25. When the Helper aids me in it and arranges?
You are what you've always been in supporting me,

26. Preceding me, preferring me, favoring me.
Why then neglect my means and overlook

27. My share, content with just my Islam and poverty?
Act in my custom the time-honored part still,