1. The parting of friends is not like my plight,
I live in desolation for the rest of my life.

2. I had companions, they were my life,
Or the most delicious thing in it to ponder.

3. An elite of the geniuses of knowledge and finesse,
It was rare for them to gather in one place.

4. They went away while time insisted upon them,
Each eye clings to their traces afterwards.

5. Every day is a spreading out for them after folding,
Every day is a folding after spreading out.

6. And days pass me by between renewing
An encounter and renewing estrangement.

7. My remaining after loved ones is but
Like the stay of a stranger in the home of captivity.

8. If their pigeons sadden me my solace is
To see them alive in people's memories.

9. Poetry remained for a period under the night
Which in Egypt the dawn of a new age followed.

10. Sami came in it as the vanguard of good
Followed by Nadim and Shawqi and Sabri.

11. And Hafez came so for each was
His share in inaugurating this era.

12. O you loyal ones who responded
To the summons of righteousness and the son of generous Egypt.

13. The poet of the Nile, poet of the East
And singling out the Nile includes every river.

14. If his people glorify him, theirs is the glory
With which he traversed every sea and land.

15. May God bless your good endeavors
And that pure feeling.

16. The reward for what you have done is not as
The self aspires to noble reward.

17. O vizier who guided the restoration of what it wished
For it achievements from glorious history.

18. Everything you undertake in gratitude
And Ali is hoped for every matter.

19. If you support old ways you have not
Been stingy to the modern with support.

20. The status of old ways is not paltry in eloquence
And the status of the modern is not paltry.

21. Between branch and pure origin
Can growth be complete without tending?

22. You were fair to Hafez, remaining an impartial judge,
And a liberal minister.

23. Collecting his works and copying them in print
Is a merit that remains forever.

24. The Diwan of Hafez is truly the history
Of a time contained in a book of poetry.

25. Arabic in style, strong yet easy,
In rhetoric having snakes of sorcery.

26. Borrowing from fineries what God lent him eloquence
In the Wise Remembrance.

27. Ingenuity fashioned in it the finest pearls
Into necklaces of matched gems.

28. Wherever you turned your eyes springs of rhyme appeared,
Gardens of beauties adorned with blossoms.

29. In it is the secret of Egypt none can match
Explaining with the subtlety of that mystery.

30. Its heart pulses with it, and the source of the Nile
From it overflows into every sea.

31. Hafez gave poetry every commendation and purified it
With deliberation and patience.

32. He was not distracted by the lateness of the age
From the manner of a beloved in his time, al-Ma'arri.

33. To that he was peerless but in the bedizening of prose
He was unique in the bedizening of verse.

34. He crafted what he crafted, selecting and excelling,
The practice of one who picks the unique pearl.

35. So when he intoned rhymes in
A gathering, his verse was “which pearl? which gem?”

36. The pulpit he mounted fluttered
Like hearts fluttering in every chest.

37. He excelled in rhetoric, gesture and voice
Between soft and loud.

38. Advancing and retreating, confronting and wheeling,
Loud, resounding utterance.

39. Galloping in the arena, charging and wheeling,
Captivating minds amid charges and retreats.

40. He tells tales, entertaining his friends
With delicious conversation without affectation.

41. Those addicted to wine among them prefer
What he served them to old vintages.

42. Overlook that in his merits and say of
His generosity, loyalty, or righteousness,

43. And his firmness, forbearance, and dignity in hardship
And munificence in ease.

44. That dear departed was of the noblest character
And they are few.

45. A man abundant in manliness who
Heeds only praiseworthy traits abundantly.

46. And he loves life, fulfilled for ages,
All means of it incentive for pride.

47. O King, it was as if the tenderness of the world to him
Was Egypt's tenderness to him.

48. It revealed to him the secret of how it withered
And how his prime still thrived.

49. Virtue untainted, character discreet,
Genius beaming from the face of a full moon.

50. Your lofty patronage ennobled Hafez
In it the memory has the finest treasure.

51. It is as if a drop of the dew of mercy
Revived his remains in the grave.

52. And as if from beyond the unseen he dictated
While the echoes repeat verses of thanks.

53. May Farouk live sovereign and king
And mighty for Egypt the longest life.

54. And may bountiful God protect him and support him
Whenever he seeks any victory.