1. Does the lightning frighten you, when it moves on
And the caravan of night is held back

2. Like a night, as you let down
An intensely raining cloud

3. I composed rhyming lines
When I decided to compose them

4. Like lines of writing
Whose distortion I exhausted

5. As if rods of willow in
The regions of air are arranged

6. And the one with flickering light has a soul
Enraptured by the lightning’s flashes

7. No! O you who would describe the dawn
If you tried describing it

8. How far my care is driven
To playfulness and frivolity

9. And though time has wronged me
I did not feel its oppression

10. My tears that flow
You did not stop their outpouring

11. If a sign of old age appeared on my head
Which is known to grey hair

12. It was as if whatever appeared on it
Was a patch of greyness stuffed in the head

13. You showed kindness from a youth
That was not kind before

14. And the boy's getting used to something
Not customary, how remote!

15. How far you postponed repentance
And evaded its undertaking!

16. My excuse for fearing disgrace
I do not exaggerate its intimidation

17. And my chastity keeps the honor
Of a clan that protects its sanctity

18. However much the drinker lightened up
Or tried to minimize it

19. The swaying gait flowed from an intoxicated one
Enveloped in swaying gait

20. And a leg that reddish wine disabled
Twisting its twists

21. It contained tottering until the shoulder joints
Almost disjointed from the twisting

22. We met at dawn, and the palm trees
At night were shrouded

23. So we left its cup made
From your rosy cheeks plucked

24. And a garden the vine dresser fashioned
And increased its irrigation

25. Above it the Pleiades inclined
Arranged in rows

26. Whereupon it made the gum plants smile
With mouths not yet watered

27. When the composer produces a subtle verse
And accomplishes its composition

28. We lurk in the wilderness in it
Wherein beasts lie hidden

29. With a gurgle its observer supposes
Is its interior and hollow

30. A grouse you desire its cooing
And the eye penetrates its depths

31. When facing it is timid
And sideways overbold

32. It sees the whip marked with stains
Wrapped on the relatives

33. Like Al-Walid's rough palms that fighting
Roughened his palms

34. And I am the longing of every lovesick one
For the dwellings and the beloved

35. You see its incorporeal image
With a body snatched away

36. As if its claws in close combat
Are tearing its ribs

37. Teeth that did not neglect to file them
The whetstone and their arrangement

38. If it turned on the beasts
It is terrifying and is terrified

39. For the quickest that would suffice us the duty
Of serving you and its undertaking

40. I am the son of time that made me old
With its various transformations

41. So no matter how much it eroded my honor
Neither above nor beneath it

42. When it was harsh to me in a request
I facilitated its coercion

43. By one whom God ennobled
He has perfected his ennoblement

44. With rain, if drought is bare
And security, if fear is uneasy

45. I will be content with the vanities
Of my time and its nonsense

46. And I will repel its torment with
My share and its lessening

47. Upon me is Ibn Sulayman
Of noble glory and lofty attainment

48. We quenched our thirst from him
In a sea of knowledge not depleted

49. And we witnessed the gardens of knowledge
Adorned with refinements

50. And the secrets of meanings without
The veils removed from them

51. And the burdens of misconceptions
Cast from the minds

52. Through him the ties of its disciplines
Were tied, Basra and Kufa

53. And from him was categorized the knowledge
You praise its categorization

54. To what I did not describe, of attributes
Described with virtue