1. The dark rouse to the night's Zenj; the dawn cascades it
Its gloom swells in darkness while the dawn gleams pass

2. Jonashi, the darkness, fled, seeing
Muqauqis marching the dawn troops in its wake

3. The signs of darkness vanished when
They saw the banners of the smiling morn unfurl

4. The bolt of the dawn brandished its sword in the East
Leading the stratus clouds, like a drove behind it

5. Cannons were mounted in the cloud tower
Thundering as oil thunders

6. The hand of daybreak shook the sun of its rays
Showing, in the darkness fleeing, its flash brilliance

7. The stars of night turned away behind it
Like sea waves enclosed by the shore

8. Where you see Aljawza and the eagle behind it
Like a swaggering one with the horses behind him trotting

9. And where the sons and father of Na'sh, Na'sh before it
Like the hollow of a swordfish behind its cargo gliding

10. Where the Pleiades cocked to the Pole an ear
As an ear-ringing cocked with pearls the ears

11. Where the compass of the sea was confused
As the loved ones were confused from it, swam away

12. Where you see stars rise in the stellar sphere
Pregnant she-camels roam the wild and kneel down

13. Where Suhayl1
, in the sea's far depth, swims

14. Like an afflicted one, collapsed to it in pain
Where you see As-Shi'ra2

15. led astray in her course
Like a band fallen from its she-camel's high back

16. Where Suhail sways in the river of its horizon
Rising and falling the wont of his pace

17. Where dusk was streaked with grey by the dawn
Like a black woman with streaks of grey in her braids

18. Where you see the morn, a silver boat
On a turquoise sea, sprinkling pearls

19. So come to a meadow the rain watered its expanse
Fertilizing by its watering whatever famished there

20. Where a bough hides in the gloom and a twig shows in the light
An eye glimpses and an antelope forelock capers

21. About the tales of love question every lover
Whose tears avow and whose anguish exhausts

22. Since the hand of the cloud wrote on the meadow script
Lines with fingers of hanging pearls strung

23. And lips of flowers smiled at the kiss
Of evening, so musk and scent reposed on it

24. The roses' cheek was veiled from its steed
So comfort, joy, and rest slept on it

25. Doves sang on the boughs of araks3
warbling

26. Like tattoo on the shoulders of a smooth cheek
The bride of the glade was escorted in her halo's gown

27. Her dishevelled hair crowning her
Of ruddy cheeks and pretty glance

28. Pearls her necklace and the gulf her anklets
Her dress was brocaded with daybreak's saffron

29. Her caftan spun from the spring's silk
Her anklets wrought from the leaves of streams

30. Her earrings made from the cores of blooms
Heal with the chalices of hanging fruits the lovesick's illness

31. That anguished and hunched her
A goblet with which, when morn breaks, to delight

32. Capers over the night of glooms
A libertine trapped in the glass like fire in flint

33. That if struck, its sparks cease not
Comprehensive wine, yellow, red, coffee brown

34. Clear drink, hot and icy cold dark blue
With it circles a full moon whose stature and rise

35. Are like a sun striding over minute sand
With youths whose intimacy knot holds fast

36. Kinship lies in intimacy to them and kin binding
My eyes delight in them, in them mine heart is pleased

37. While my heart saddens from them, of them the remoteness rifts
A young oryx who the heart and thoughts fed

38. Not acacia leaves or salty salsolas
I nestled his love in my eyelids and essence

39. None before nested it, neither a bough nor a twig
And I made for him of my eyes' plenty, tears to reap

40. With the dust of my tears' pearls, for palm's soil, enough
On his cheek is a mole whence love began

41. And from its spot on the page script lines set out
In his mouth flowers, blossoms and coy glances

42. And life's nectar and breeze and honey and cloves
Features apportioned the quarters of my heart to it

43. Would that from it for me since it shared, a share just!
When he draws near or visits, it's life and blessing

44. When he calls or turns away, it's wringing and expanse
If he glimpses, Zephyr visits him, Pleasing is

45. If he shines, it's the early morning horse chasing
As if his cheek and mole are on his cheek

46. Roses held in their wrapping crimson leaf
A king of beauty who mastered my heart with his power

47. How not! And isn’t a love-king’s power subduing!
He is like a rose when it unravels and a leaf when it thrives

48. Like a lion when it attacks and a deer when it capers
If antagonized, overpowered; if struck, perished; and if plotted, ruined

49. A steed conversant with clemency and calmness both habit
So laudable this shapely curly-haired knight

50. He’s the essence supreme; the rest, if counted, superfluous
For him the august spirit and luck and excellence

51. His palm bears the cloud's bounty; his arm, might and vigor
His stature combined valor and munificence traits

52. Like rain, he pours; like a lion, strides
He outfitted the Raq`a saddle with the steed and oryx

53. His swords are white; his horses gray
An army whose wings soar with havoc

54. His claw is death and his fang perdition
The swords of his resolve lop the heads of mutiny

55. The pens might improve but for the scribes, enough
His whiteness in skirmishes laughs

56. Swearing they are peaks though low mounds
His white enjoins, if blood of enemies seethes

57. Only to reap the two veins, not to reconcile
His white imposes on the enemies’ ends in the Raq`a

58. And no wonder; isn’t imposition from a crocodile's traits?
His white plays with the rankings in the Raq`a goals

59. Kicks a ball over the ground like a cat
The Commander of the Faithful’s trenchant blade whereby

60. He remedies time’s scourge, should it distort propriety
He unsheathed it only ascertained that it

61. Is a Yameni blade whose sharpness pours forth
Of a people occupying every grace company

62. So laudable a people! So laudable a band!
Their lineage as though, belonged it to a star, sets not

63. Nor for a moon darkens nor a sun blankets
With the steed they built the canopy of pure religion

64. And led victory's racers, behind them the steeds raced
Lions beneath the armours as though

65. Robes of superior quality their forms jacket
Apportion, they attain; attacked, they accord

66. Assailed, they retreat; asked, they impart
Thoroughbreds war robes invest

67. With them strides the resolute, smooth-moving patch
If a peril mounts or piles up a hazard

68. It deletes as writing deleted on a page
How would peril mutiny when his sword

69. Against the sedition letters if inscribed, erases?
With it he fortified in the firmament the stations of Sa’udad4

70. So no wonder platforms were made by its tread lofty
A pen of his skewers and mends; beholds!

71. A professional with whom clenching and spreading apt
Bestowing bounties, he enlivens propitious existence

72. Executing justice, he lives thereby fair allotment
In his palm lies a sea whose favour’s copious floods

73. With no depth and no shore to its expanse
He called me from afar in breeze of his pure stream

74. Begot thereby for me magic lines fortune scribed
It, unless a torrent I neighboured but does

75. Any that a rainstorm bordered fear aridity?
My lord! O refuge cave and he with whom

76. On plain of hopes and the star I feel secure
Son of one whose prized virtues the realms suffused

77. For him the glory ancestry and the honor scionage
I congratulate you on the auspicious feast but

78. I congratulate it as from your tidings joy reached
So a thousand congratulations and a thousand more

79. Till counting fails or metering destabilizes
At your door the slave proffers an unsullied eulogy

80. Its beauty a crown; its rhythm anklets
That kiss your fortunes and gift necklaces

81. Their words pearls and their metrics an arm band5
So live safe under the bond of an allegiance

82. In whose wellbeing compacting and binding conjoin
May you, thereby, avail the helpless and revive the dew

83. The world flourish and the touch of blains heal
You are the one if a distress mounts or transgresses

84. For you the annulment, the conjoining, the lifting, and lowering
You remain what the dawn recounts in its register

85. Of one whose eyes contain the sun in their waters
To trill over the Nay flutes the morn rousing

86. The dark rouse to the night's Zenj; the dawn cascades it
And ignore one who remains reciting in the dimness

87. The gloom swelled and the night's troop with grey streaked
1 Suhail: Canopus star

88. 2 As-Shi'ra: star in the Big Bear constellation
3 Arak: a tree whose wood is used to make musical instruments like the oud

89. 4 Sa’udad: Umayyad ruler, Sa’d bin Abi Waqqas.
5 Arm band: woman’s ornament worn on the upper arm