قدك مثل الغصن في اعتداله

لولا نسيم هب من عذاله

Your stature is like a branch in its straightness,

were it not for a breeze blowing from its reproachers.

وكيف لا يميل غصن ناعم

بين شمول العذل أو شماله

And how could a tender branch not sway

amid the wine of reproach or its north wind?

ترنحت منك القناة بالذي

جرى على سمعك من جرياله

The spear-shaft of your form reeled at what

flowed into your hearing of its crimson wine.

في كل جسم من هواك علة

صحتها طرفك باعتلاله

In every body, love of you causes an illness;

your eye, in its languor, is its cure.

وبين أزرارك جيد جؤذر

تغز لي وقف على غزاله

Between your buttons is the neck of an oryx calf;

[my love-verse] is devoted to his gazelle.

يتسع المجال في وشاحه

لا يزول الضيق من خلخاله

There is ample room within his sash,

yet tightness never leaves his anklet.

قد كتب الحسن على دلاله

هذا الذي يدعو إلى إدلاله

Beauty has written upon his coquetry:

this is what invites his self-assurance.

وعلمتني نزقات صده

أن أطلب الأمان من ملاله

The caprices of his rejection taught me

to seek protection from his weariness.

تسلط الوجد على جوانحي

مذ سلط الهجر على وصاله

Love's anguish mastered my breast

since he gave estrangement power over his union.

قال الغرام داره وواله

فقد يرق للفؤاد الواله

Passion said, “Humor him and remain loyal to him;

he may yet soften toward the lovelorn heart.”

وبين جنبي ضمير لا يرى التخفي

ف بالإبلال عن بلباله

Between my sides is a heart that knows no relief

through recovery from its anguish.

كأنما إساءتي تسره

والطبع لا يطمع في انتقاله

It is as though mistreating me delights him,

and there is no hope of changing his nature.

هانت جنايات الزمان بعدما

تمرن الجنب على حباله

Time's offenses grew slight once

my flank grew accustomed to its snares,

وآثرت في مارني أرسانه

واعتاد ظهري العري من جلاله

and its halters [marked] the soft tip of my nose,

and my back grew used to being bare of its saddlecloths.

كأنني من رقة أو دقة

أول ما يسقط من غرباله

As though, through thinness or fineness,

I were the first thing to fall through its sieve.

أحوجني إلى المديح باخل

سلاسل البخل على سلساله

A miser drove me to panegyric,

with chains of avarice upon his flowing stream.

أوقات فكري كلها مشغولة

بمدحه ولست من أشغاله

All the hours of my thought are occupied

with praising him, while I am none of his concerns.

لما غدت خسارتي لربحه

أفسدت حالي بصلاح حاله

When my loss became his gain,

I ruined my condition by improving his.

وفاز من عمري بما أنفقته

في وصفه ولم أفز بماله

He gained the portion of my life I spent

describing him, but I gained none of his wealth.

ظن نبال الذم تخطي عرضه

ليست كما فوق من نباله

He thought the arrows of censure would miss his honor,

unlike the arrows he himself had nocked.

وما درى بأنها إما قذى

أو ميسم يبقى على قذاله

He did not know they are either a mote in the eye

or a brand that remains upon the back of his head.

ومن جنايات اللئام بعض ما

لا يقدر الشعر على احتماله

Among the offenses of the base are things

that poetry cannot bear.

أصبحت استجدي جهاماً ليس في

عارضه وبل سوى وباله

I have come to beg from a rainless cloud, with no

downpour in its cloudbank except its bane.

وأهتدي بحائر ولم يكن

نور الهدى يقدح من ضلاله

And I seek guidance from one bewildered, though no

light of guidance is struck from his error.

حط على المبارك بن كامل

تمام ما ينقص من كماله

Upon al-Mubarak ibn Kamil has settled

the fullness of what the other lacks in perfection.

أعلى على الميمون من مناره

أضعاف ما أعلاه من مناله

He raised the fortunate one's beacon

many times more than he increased his gifts.

مولى وإن قلت خليل لم تخف

من عهده بوائق اختلاله

A patron—and if you call him a friend, you need not fear

the calamities of a breach in his pledge.

لا تنحت الأيام طول عمره

ما يشبه الخلال من خلاله

The days, throughout his life, cannot whittle

a toothpick's worth from his virtues.

قد جانس الإحسان بالحسن فهل

جميله يشتق من جماله

He has made beneficence akin to beauty; does

his kindness derive from his handsomeness?

المرشدي المنقذي المتنمي

في المجد بين آله وآله

Al-Murshidi, al-Munqidhi, tracing his descent

in glory through his kin on either side.

من معشر ما منهم إلا امرؤ

تنصل الدهر إلى نصاله

From a people whose every man

has Time pleading pardon before his blades.

مجد بنيت فرعه لأصله

متبعاً تحذو على مثاله

A glory whose branch you built upon its root,

following on, treading in its example.

يتبع فيه كامل مقلداً

أبا علي وهو من أقياله

In it Kamil follows Muqallad,

Abu Ali, himself among its princely lords.

أسنده نصر إلى مقلد

عن منقذ وهو أبو أشباله

Nasr transmitted it to Muqallad,

from Munqidh, the father of his lion-cubs.

مطردون كاطراد جدول

زال القذى عن مرتمى زلاله

They follow in unbroken succession, like a stream

whose clear water's course is free of debris,

وكاطراد من كعوب ذابل

يجلو دجى الليل سنا ذباله

and like the succession of joints in a slender lance,

whose wicks' radiance dispels the darkness of night.

بيت إذا حدثت عن بنيهم

لم يرد الإسناد عن إرساله

A house: when you relate reports of their sons,

the report is not rejected for a gap in its chain.

قد شد مجد الدين أزر عقده

فالدهر لا يطمع في انحلاله

Majd al-Din has firmly braced its bond,

so Time has no hope of undoing it.

وأصبحت صفحة مجد قومه

لا صدئت تلمع من صقاله

The face of his people's glory has come

to gleam—may it never rust!—from his polishing.

أبلج لا يخجل راجي فضله

ولا يرى الوصمة في سؤاله

Radiant: the seeker of his bounty feels no shame,

and sees no disgrace in asking him.

ما في الغمام من ندى ومن ردى

فمن سجاياه ومن سجاله

Whatever moisture and destruction the clouds contain

come from his qualities and his brimming buckets.

داني قليب المستقى قصيرة

أرشية الحاجات من نواله

Near is the well to draw from, and short

are the ropes of need that reach his bounty.

فضيلتي ترعف من مقالتي

وفضله يعرف من فعاله

My excellence gushes forth from my speech,

and his merit is known from his deeds.

صنت به شعراً له بذلته

وصون بيت الله في ابتذاله

Through him I safeguarded poetry I offered him,

and God's House is safeguarded through its common use.

خصائص ذكرت منها بعض ما

تعشقه الأشعار من خصاله

Qualities: I have mentioned some of what

poetry loves among his traits.

ولو صغى فكري إلى مثوبة

ومال ما نفقت من آماله

Even had my thought inclined toward recompense

and wealth, [the wording concerning his hopes is unclear],

ما كنت والسحر الحرام صنعتي

أحرزتها الحرام عن حلاله

I would not, though forbidden magic is my craft,

have kept that forbidden art from his lawful wealth.

فكيف والأيام تدري أنني

هذا مقام لست من رجاله

How then, when the days know that I—

this is a station whose men I am not among?

قد ستر الماضي من العمر وما

ينست من ستر على استقباله

He has sheltered the past of my life, and I have not

[despaired] of shelter for its future.

كم فرج من حرج جرى به

برد الهوى من جمرتي أهواله

How often has relief from distress brought forth

cool air from the twin embers of its terrors!

والبدر بعد تمه فلم يزل

محاقه يخبر عن هلاله

And the full moon, after attaining fullness, has never ceased

to have its dark phase herald its crescent.