1. إنْ جئتَ آل سُلمى أو مغانيها

    فاحفظ فؤادك واحْذَر من غوانيها

    If you come to Salma's family or her abodes,

    Guard your heart and beware of her fair maidens.

  2. تلك المغاني معاني الحسن لائحة

    منها لعينك فاشرح لي معانيها

    Those abodes—beauty's meanings shine forth

    From them before your eyes; explain their meanings to me.

  3. معالم كلَّما استسقت معاهدها

    وبلاً من الدمْع باتَ الوبل يسقيها

    Landmarks whose old haunts, whenever they ask for

    A downpour of tears, are watered by that downpour all night.

  4. منازل وقف العاني بها فشكا

    ما يشتكي من صروف الدهر عافيها

    Dwellings where a captive stood and lamented

    What their visitor laments of the turns of time.

  5. واحبس بها الركب أن تقضي حقوق ثرًى

    على المتيَّم حقٌّ أنْ يؤدِّيها

    And halt the caravan there, to pay the soil its dues,

    Which the love-stricken are duty-bound to pay.

  6. قف بي أصبّ بها دمعاً أشيبَ دماً

    فإنَّما أنا صبّ الدَّار عانيها

    Stop with me, that I may pour out tears there, mingling them with blood;

    For I am only the dwelling's lover, its captive.

  7. ويلاه من كبد حرَّى أضرَّ بها

    منع الأَحبَّة شرب الرَّاح من فيها

    Alas for a burning liver, sorely harmed by

    The beloveds' withholding wine to drink from her mouth.

  8. لي مهجة والقدود السمر ما برحت

    تميتها والصبا النجديّ يُحييها

    I have a heart, and the dusky figures never cease

    To slay it, while the east wind from Najd revives it.

  9. يأتي إليك هواها بالصبا سحراً

    فهل عرفت الهوى من أينَ يأتيها

    Its longing comes to you with the east wind before dawn;

    Have you learned whence love comes to it?

  10. فما لهاتفة تشجي الخليّ جوًى

    وما رماها بسهم البين راميها

    Why does a calling bird make the carefree ache with longing,

    Though no archer has struck her with separation's arrow?

  11. لله ما فعلت بي في تفنُّنها

    ورقاءُ في الدوح تشجيني وأشجيها

    God, what she has done to me with her varied song—

    A gray dove in the great trees: she grieves me, and I grieve her.

  12. وهيَّج البرق لمَّا لاح وامضه

    لواعجاً في هوى ميٍّ أُعانيها

    And lightning, when its flash appeared, stirred

    Burning pangs I suffer in my love for Mayy.

  13. فعبَّرت عبرات الدمع حين جرتْ

    عن صبوةٍ بتُّ أخفيها وأُبديها

    So the tears, when they flowed, gave voice

    To a passion I spent the night both hiding and revealing.

  14. يا برقُ سلِّم على حيٍّ بذي سَلَمٍ

    وجُز بأحياء ميثاء وحيِّيها

    O lightning, greet a clan at Dhu Salam,

    And pass by Maytha's encampments and greet her.

  15. حيِّ حياة المعنَّى في مواصلهم

    كانوا منى النفس لو نالت أمانيها

    Greet those whose communion gives the tormented lover life;

    They were the soul's hopes, if only it could win its wishes.

  16. قد طالَ عهدي بأحباب شغفت بها

    ولا أرى طول هذا العهد ينسيها

    It has been long since I saw beloved ones I adored,

    Yet I do not find this long absence makes me forget them.

  17. ما للملامة تغريني ولي أُذُنٌ

    تملّها وأرى العذَّال تمليها

    Why does reproach goad me, when I have an ear

    That tires of it, while I see the reproachers dictating it?

  18. يا عاذلي كلَّما أبصرتَ حال شجٍ

    فخلّه فهو مشغوف وخلِّيها

    O my reproacher, whenever you see a sorrowing lover's state,

    Then leave him be, for he is smitten, and leave it alone.

  19. فلا تعذب أُخيَّ اليوم مهجته

    فإنَّ ما لقيت في الحبِّ يكفيها

    So do not torment his heart today, dear brother;

    For what it has suffered in love is enough for it.

  20. لا تلحني فتزيد القلب صبوته

    وربَّما جرح العشَّاق آسيها

    Do not reproach me, thus increasing the heart's passion;

    And sometimes the lovers' healer wounds them.

  21. أقولُ للبرق إذا لاحتْ لوامعه

    يحكي تبسُّم ذات الخال تشبيها

    I say to the lightning, when its flashes appear,

    Resembling the smile of the woman with the beauty mark:

  22. بالله كرِّر أحاديث العُذَيب فما

    بغيرها غلَّة الأَشواق ترويها

    For God's sake, repeat the tales of al-'Udhayb; you cannot

    Quench longing's burning thirst with anything else.

  23. وارفق بمهجة مشتاق بقد رديت

    وكلّ نفس هواها كانَ مردتيها

    And be gentle with a yearning heart, slain by a figure;

    And every soul's passion has been its undoing.

  24. ويا نسيماً سرى من أرض كاظمة

    يروي أحاديث نشر عن روابيها

    And O breeze that traveled by night from the land of Kazima,

    Telling tales of fragrance from its hills,

  25. احْمِلْ إلى الموصل الحدبا تحيَّتنا

    واقرأ السَّلام على من قد سما فيها

    Carry our greeting to Mosul, al-Hadba,

    And convey greetings of peace to him who has risen high there.

  26. وإنَّما هو عبد الله عالِمُها

    ومقتداها ومهديها وهاديها

    He is none other than Abd Allah, its scholar,

    And its exemplar, its rightly guided one, and its guide.

  27. الفاضل الفرد فيهم في فضائله

    لا يستطيعُ حسودٌ أن يواريها

    The virtuous man, unrivaled among them in his virtues,

    Which no envious man can conceal.

  28. من عصبة برئت من كلِّ منقصةٍ

    من الورى فتعالى الله باريها

    Of a company free of every failing

    Among humankind—exalted be God, its Creator!

  29. منهم تبَلَّجَ صُبح الفضل وابتهجت

    رياضه فزها بالحقِّ زاهيها

    From them the dawn of excellence shone, and joyous grew

    Its gardens; their blooms rightly flourished.

  30. علاهم سقم أكباد الحسود كما

    تشقى صدور المعالي في عواليها

    Their eminence sickens the livers of the envious, just as

    The breasts of lofty honors suffer at their heights.

  31. فلتفخر الموصل الحدباء إنَّ لكم

    نهاية الفخر قاصيها ودانيها

    Let Mosul, al-Hadba, take pride, for yours is

    The utmost glory, in its farthest and nearest parts.

  32. وللفضائل أهلٌ في الورى أبداً

    وما برحتم مدى الأيام أهليها

    Virtues always have their people among humankind,

    And you have remained their people through all the days.

  33. صحف البلاغة قد أصبحت ناشرها

    من بعد ما كادَ هذا الدهر يطويها

    You have become the one who unfolds eloquence's pages,

    After this age had almost folded them away.

  34. جزيت عن بنت فكر قد بعثت بها

    إلى محبِّيك تهديها فتهديها

    May you be rewarded for a daughter of thought you have sent

    To your admirers, gifting it and thereby guiding them.

  35. فلو نجازيك عن معشار قيمتها

    جوزيت إذ ذاكَ بالدُّنيا وما فيها

    Were we to repay you for a tenth of its worth,

    You would then be repaid with the world and all within it.

  36. ما روضة من رياض الحزن باكرها

    غيث فأضحكها إذ باتَ يبكيها

    No garden among the upland gardens, visited early by

    Rain, which made it laugh after making it weep all night,

  37. يوماً تضرَّج فيها الورد وجنته

    حتَّى تبسَّمَ من عُجْبٍ أقاحيها

    On a day when the rose's cheek blushed there,

    Until its daisies smiled with pride,

  38. أبهى وأبهجَ من نظم نظمت به

    زُهْرَ الكواكب نظماً في قوافيها

    Is lovelier or more delightful than the verse in which you strung

    The shining stars in ordered strings within its rhymes.

  39. بيوت فضل حَوَت من كلِّ نادرةٍ

    أحكَمَتْ في يدك الطولى مبانيها

    Houses of excellence, containing every rare marvel,

    Their structures perfected in your masterful hand.

  40. رقَّتْ إلى أنْ تخيَّلْنا النسيم سرى

    منها ولم يسر إلاَّ من نواحيها

    So delicate they became that we imagined a breeze traveling by night

    From them—and it traveled from nowhere but their precincts.

  41. تملى على السمع أحياناً فتملأه

    لئالئاً ومعانيها لئاليها

    At times they are recited to the ear, filling it

    With pearls; their meanings are their pearls.

  42. كأنَّما طلعة الأَقمار ومطلعها

    والأَنجم الزهر أمستْ من قوافيها

    As though the moons' faces and their place of rising,

    And the shining stars, were now among its rhymes.

  43. كم أسكرتنا ولم نسق كؤوس طلًى

    وإنَّما الخمر معنًى من معانيها

    How often it made us drunk, though no cups of thickened wine were served us!

    Wine is merely one of its meanings.

  44. مصوغة من دموع العين صافية

    ما زال ظاهرها يبدو كخافيها

    Fashioned, pure, from the eye's tears,

    Its outward aspect ever appears like its hidden one.

  45. من مظهر السحر من بادي رويّته

    بصورة الشعر تخييلاً وتمويها

    By one who reveals magic from the first stirrings of his thought,

    In the form of poetry, through illusion and beguilement.

  46. رويّة كلَّما نادتْ بمعجزةٍ

    من البلاغة جاءتها تلبِّيها

    A mind that, whenever it called for a miracle

    Of eloquence, had it come in answer to its call.

  47. كم أبْهَر العينَ حُسناً من سنى كلمٍ

    بدا وتورية فيها تورِّيها

    How often beauty dazzled the eye through the radiance of words

    That shone, and through a double meaning you veiled within it!

  48. وكيف نأتي لها يوماً بثانية

    وأنتَ يا واحد الآحاد منشيها

    How could we ever bring forth a second to match it,

    When you, O peerless of the peerless, are its composer?

  49. لا زلتَ ما طلعتْ شمس وما غربتْ

    مطالعاً لشموس المجد حاويها

    May you remain, as long as the sun rises and sets,

    The rising horizons of glory's suns, holding them within you.