1. She did not blame me for shedding tears,
But blamed that my tears did not last long.

2. She felt pain when she saw my pain
From the agony of separation—human nature is to feel pain.

3. She went on shedding unseen tears
While I went on shedding unconcealed tears.

4. Separation causes a rift that can be mended
While absence causes cracks that cannot be mended.

5. O sanctuary of passion, your affliction remains
A sanctuary of decrepitude and continual tears.

6. What harm would have befallen your people
Had the rule of justice returned as it had been perverted?

7. How many traces of passion and love remain in the heart
Time and days failed to erase!

8. O God’s gift everlasting among the Bani Jusham
With the King of Kings from Jusham!

9. And you, O Tughlib, pride of the proud!
You have adorned the highlands and summits.

10. Indeed the Emir Ibn Tawq—majestic is his nobility.
God has made him unique among Arabs and non-Arabs.

11. A sword, leader of guidance—when erected
It establishes those who were not standing.

12. How many a dear soul was stingy out of spite
Yet his heel was dragged in spite of him.

13. Ask the wicked about their days:
What did the consequences of crime do to them

14. When they transgressed and wronged in crass ignorance?
You decreed on them a war to choke them with icy death.

15. You were forebearing with peace until their ignorant thought
That you had become heedless and your resolve had weakened.

16. But when dissension—pure and simple—disheveled them,
You struck them with a sword to trim their dishevelment.

17. You brandished against them a sharp, slicing blade
And a resolute determination like that of the biting, piercing sword.

18. The faces of the wicked on earth were shut before them
As if they were in the bewilderment of oblivion.

19. They passed the night kindling the fire of war among themselves
And woke up between victory for havoc and a mouth.

20. You cured their illness when you met them
With the malady of a decisive battle that heals illness.

21. You sent against them from the confines of fate
Birds in flocks not attributed to shooting.

22. You made them drink from the bucket of death
And drowned them into ruin and rot.

23. You crushed them when you engaged them
With your powerful shoulders that cannot be crushed.

24. You left them—wounded, vanquished,
Moaning, felled, flesh upon flesh.

25. Captives, injured, and dead in their homes—
As if wearing a shirt of blood.

26. You made them inherit regret for the ignorance of their deeds
If you left in them a place for regret.

27. On the day of the raid, your steeds fasted
But on the day of the raid, your sword did not fast.

28. The clouds of death poured over their pillars
In a downpour of death—intimate, bloody.

29. Events that set out to cut off the nose of dissension
Though dissension had lived a time without being cut off.

30. As if in its burrows there was a smell
That returned tailless after time and smelling.

31. From your breeze, O Abu Kulthum, gushed forth
The springs of generosity in hardship and famine.

32. Tawq built you a house of glory, continuous,
Rising high, solidly constructed.

33. He continues to prefer since he donned his robe
The ways of glory from his ancient fathers.

34. His endeavors are tied to a King
With a bond held fast to God the Everlasting.

35. His eloquence finds no rest
Except in bounties that relieve bounties.

36. Protector of the neighbor, honored neighbor, generous,
Pure in purpose, faithful to his words and promises.

37. His neighbor, due to his might, is as if
Between the two mosques or in the yard of the Sacred House.

38. And the one who seeks his protection finds refuge through his grace
Though devoid of the dishonor of poverty.

39. If the world had some of his qualities,
Then the world, through us, would be of pure qualities.

40. He protects the sanctity of eminence and glory gained through effort
As long as calculations and generosity persist.

41. You see in his determination during every adversity
A full moon illuminating the full moon’s illumination in darkness.

42. When resolved on a matter, he almost does what
The tablets have not trembled with from the shaking of the pen.

43. None but shared money and unshared honor
Have touched the hands of villains.

44. He pleased time and its afflictions pleased him,
So he neither weakened, nor lost resolve, nor blam

45. He never met a questioner since he began questioning
Except with the happiest face, smiling.

46. He left behind traces of glory and generosity
That effaced traces of Ka‘b and Hirama.