1. The branches bowed to the Kaaba of your perfection,
And the gazelles were awed by the magic of your glance.

2. You emerged on the horizon of beauty complete,
So the moon of night's darkness suffered loss.

3. O tormentor of my soul, are you a full moon
Or a narcissus, a pomegranate blossom, or a tooth?

4. Or are you one of the Houri of Paradise who fled?
Or a noble angel or a human being?

5. Are your cheeks a garden or a flowery meadow
Or is it Nu'man wherein is Nu'man's bliss?

6. Or is it a rose garden singing with blooming roses
Or a heaven wherein is Ridwan's joy?

7. Is your eyeliner a green ant gone walking to and fro
Or horses charging in their course or reeds?

8. Or is it the shadow of a cheek stretching its fringes
On the shore of the cheek's pool, or basil?

9. Or the kohl of an eyelid shining in the mirror of your cheek,
Or flames with smoke rising high above them?

10. Or clouds letting down their fringes upon a horizon
As if their raiments were skins or vipers?

11. Or a scribe who wrote words like moles
On pages made by Allah, the Merciful?

12. Is your tall slender form a candle
Or a branch above which is a garden?

13. Or is it a staff which your mouth's whiteness
Adorns, O branch of the boxwood, O spear?

14. O narcissus in your glance and bearing
From whom branches and gazelles learn grace,

15. Your cheek is a garden, your eyeliner violets,
Your face a sun, your form a slender branch.

16. The swaying of her plump cheeks makes sway
What the slender, delicate branch cannot.

17. Before her killing glances wrecked my soul
I did not know that gazelles have eyes.

18. By God, her blushing cheeks have kindled in my heart
Fires not lit by flames.

19. And tears pour over her cheeks billowing
So her down is dragged forth by their flow.

20. O Tears, stop your ceaseless flowing, restrain yourself,
No, spill forth for you are a torrent, a flood.

21. O mistress of the languishing eyelid, heal
The sickness of my body; is there no time for healing?

22. Does illness afflict your eyelid or does your stony heart
Make my heart quake out of fear of your eyes?

23. What excuse can one like me make for loving you
When your captivating beauty lures my obedient heart?

24. The flow of blood through your cheek leads cravings astray
Just as the fatal glance of your eye leads souls to perdition.

25. When you travel it is like the rising of a full white moon
When you show anger it is like a thirsty lightning flash.

26. I love the way your robes fall with apples and
Pomegranates in their folds.

27. A rosebud blooms on your cheek amid embers ringed
By lilies in their prime.

28. The breezes from you make me happy but
They only increase the pounding of my heart.

29. I sway with great joy until my clothes
Make me seem drunk on wine.

30. I conceal my love for you while tears proclaim it -
With tears, does hiding do any good?

31. A toast to the days gone by which are like
A soul at rest whose body is a tomb.

32. When the shade of your veil was flourishing
And life was life and time was time,

33. And the bride of that garden was adorned at her neck
With a necklace whose pearls were drops of rain,

34. And the partridge strutted in the tresses of her hair
Whose flowers were fashioned into a crown for her.

35. The river was like an Indian or a silver bangle
On an arm clothed in green or like a serpent.

36. And dawn was a rider on a steed reciting poetry
To the army of darkness as if he were the sultan.

37. My lord Uthman the royal king, the just sovereign
The most magnanimous, lofty, mighty, towering,

38. Master of the generous, watchful over justice.
A king whose brandishing of the sword with his hand

39. Makes even mountains bow to the lightning of his thunder.
If his resolutions and gifts were dispersed

40. Among the people, none would be stingy or cowardly.
Wakeful, the initiatives of his command are guarded

41. By resolves which discernment leads.
He tames the untamed, guiding them with a will

42. Whose rein is sound reason and perception.
He sees outcomes in the page of his thoughts

43. As if his ideas were soothsayers.
Standing before him inspires such awe in hearts

44. That discretion and candor become equal.
It is as if images of standing in his presence

45. Are images of executions, all are mute as statues.
His ease and the fingers of his hand are like a sea

46. Upon which surging waves rise up for him.
They are clouds in times of prosperity and in the

47. Dark night of wars they are stalwart lions.
We seek standards from them yet before scaling

48. The heights of their glory there is no deficiency.
Theirs are mansions of space and a triumphal abode

49. To which universes submitted in delight.
Last came their successor, yet he is like an inscription,

50. While they are the heading.
Say to him who denies, the proof and evidence now stand

51. Against you.
He inherited the caliphate from Abu Hafs, so there is no

52. Doubt about him for he is Uthman.
A king whose smiling in war makes the faces

53. Of warriors frown.
When he marches against enemies, his warriors

54. Are neither fleers nor smooth-tongued flatterers.
In seeking the objects of his cavalry he does not relent

55. Until defeat overtakes those who flee.
Of rank which surpasses highness, of secure position

56. Above ascents no station can transcend,
Of chivalry which gathers all piety in its environs

57. And nature of which forgiveness is inherent,
Of resolve that, had it been given to an armed man,

58. Would not cause coats of mail to yield their links.
In him are courage, competence, piety,

59. Justice, good deeds and benevolence.
At the mention of him the hearts of beings find comfort

60. And cities quiver with a kind of rapture.
He split conventions in times of prosperity so his gift

61. Was a torrent against which the course of fate collapsed.
His downpours are owed to pouring rain—far from it!

62. Where is the rain and the deluge?
There is no fault in his favors except that they

63. Are prices paid for the necks of free men.
Time listens to his command and prohibition

64. And jinn and men obey his rule.
I came to his noble council to behold the glory

65. With which the caravans proceeded,
And I drew near and kissed his palm and saw how

66. The surging waves and valleys gushed forth!
O Lord of an army whose drink is lightning and whose steeds

67. Are fire with columns of smoke rising above,
A drink which attracts eagles, intimates of doom,

68. As if it were the leaves of fever and acacia,
And the ground, soaked with settling dew, is dyed red

69. As if at that instant it were steeds
Horses like arrows and youths gleaming

70. With the flash of lightning so their light shines clear.
A blossom which when the flames of night fires are lit upon it

71. Scatters heroes as the spears fall.
Wondrous they are to have neighbored in their palms

72. An ocean yet its fires are not quenched for them!
A lion whose claws are spears led

73. By a lion showing you how lions are humiliated.
He attacks with thrusts and does not ward off the swords

74. Of cowards, nor is the foe a human in his eyes.
A king whom the praise of his eulogist adorns

75. And by whose mention that praise is weighed.
Nobility which I attained and the abode of towering

76. Kingship which rose above the heavens for him as a palace.
It came to meet me when its expanses for towns

77. Were spread out, shaded by spears' points.
And I saw him traveling freely among the swords

78. Like the moon orbited by meteors.
O son of triumphant kings who defended the sanctuary of guidance

79. With blades to which necks bowed down,
And who raised the minaret with swords

80. To which steeds bowed to the Kaaba of their blue sheen,
And who ascended to the sublime with resolves

81. Which neither Chosroes nor the Numan attained,
You are the imam while all others are your flock,

82. You are the advance guard while all else are helpers.
Your steeds came forth to the hunt as if they were

83. A flock of wild cows with your spears as the branches.
As if their saddles were litters

84. And their voices were melodies.
By God, you are sparing with your life though it

85. Is a cause by which the world lives and is weighed.
You were granted success in the discretion of speech such as

86. Neither soothsayer nor witch possessed.
When you glimpse, your command's revelation is a descent

87. When you speak, it is clear exposition.
When you ask, it is not because you lack,

88. When you are silent, your beneficence whispers.
My status could not be loftier, had I

89. Some standing, O resolute one, in your door.
May God appoint you to what no tongue has encompassed

90. And what has eluded the reach of speech!
You remained for the eulogist, O king of the world,

91. As long as there were eons and eras.