1. Is this Hazwa or Zarud?
Is that pleasant life to return?

2. Can lovers' oaths in it be fulfilled?
And covenants to us remembered?

3. Can bygone nights return again?
And to me, after estrangement, intimacy?

4. Will the blossoms of joy from my beloveds
Come to me while youth's branches sag?

5. Can I attain what I yearn for in love
Despite hindrance, all I desire and want?

6. May Allah water Ukayk's meadows with rainclouds
Tarrying over them pouring generously!

7. A past time has gone by displeasing me
And a life decreed by the two auspicious lines.

8. I enjoyed the garden of wishes blooming
While an envious blamer kept away from us.

9. I forget not, no, the tribe's watering place they watered,
And their clansmen, the loud thunder's stillness stilled.

10. Shawqi represents them to my eye, though mountains
Towering, or fearful wastelands, lie between us.

11. They openly broke their pact with me, while their pledge
Remains, however distant, firm to me.

12. Languorous are Ghayda's eyelids, weak,
While her heart is firm and strong.

13. When she lowers the blackness of her eyelids, you would think
Her ready to attack, while they slumber in repose.

14. She upbraids me beyond love's claim upon me
Though my passion has no further extent.

15. She promises me a secret union―but how often
Her procrastinating promises come to nothing!

16. So beware the courtesans' promises of union:
Their promises are warnings, nothing less.

17. My friend, will the abode draw nearer to a lover
Eyes have spied on, and writs sealed against?

18. Did we not say, standing at the tribe's watering place,
We would reiterate roving and restore the custom?

19. Awake―are these Hazwa's or Khayyam's tents?
Or is this Hazwa, and that Zarud?

20. But you told me to show patience and resignation―
Flung away, no, your command goes too far!

21. Who can lend me noble patience, when the steeds
Of passion have mobilized to kill me?

22. My will has exhausted every effort,
But the demon of passion is willful and unbending,

23. If I lack all power to show patience for my beloveds,
I can at least bear the burden of passion staunchly.

24. My patience wanes while passion persists unchanged
And my youth decays, but passion is renewed,

25. No lover as impassioned as I in the ranks of lovers,
Nor glory like the glory I have achieved,

26. A lord who surpassed all the noble in generosity
While people are but lords and commoners,

27. A knight whom the shoulder of glory and ascendancy raised up
A piercing blade of Ahmad's line of knights;

28. He holds the world's destiny freely in his right hand,
Turning it however he desires and wills.

29. Whenever the petitioner of favors pleads,
A ready and seasoned wit answers him.

30. Leave Hatem be! If the lightning of munificence flashes,
None can match my brother Jawd's openhandedness!

31. And were the valiant knight Abd to be fancied
Invincible, his heart would melt if it were iron!

32. Roam the times as you desire, you are peerless among its sons,
For by my life, what you construct and ordain is unmatched!

33. The nobly born suppose glory is what they seek,
While naught but your choice and decree exists.

34. How much glory have you granted the world lesser than you
When you arose and the age's sons lay abed!

35. How many original acts of munificence you based
While they from constructing munificence refrained!

36. How you have eclipsed the fame of many a famed one!
Every leader since your emergence led.

37. You have wearied the predecessors in the arena of ascendancy
However you cared to venture forth and repeat.

38. How your noble traits taught the world lessons
Of glory whose proofs cannot be rejected!

39. How fingers that grasped the cups were often short
While your sea of bounty still flows free!

40. With an aspect blooming like youth, and an eloquence
To melt the towering mountains, bounteous as clouds.

41. I have not counted your many rare virtues
That circle your noble neck like necklaces.

42. Sublimities that abased all but you, as if
Fetters clasped all necks, bonds none can loose.

43. Hearing attuned to the sweetly-worded address
To which singing and praising fall short.

44. Chant, and melt souls in love forbidden;
Nearly do mountains crumble as you recite!

45. I send redoubled longing darting through you
Its fuel within ribs kindling wildly.

46. My heart has borne, from your loss, an agony
Shaking its stillness, wounding and tearing.

47. Since you left no peace has knocked on my sore heart
Nor rest glanced at my wakeful bleeding eyelid,

48. Ask my heart the secret of my devotion: by my life
My claims, however bold, are verified!

49. May He who decreed our separation
Restore what is lost, and renew the bond!

50. The rain has watered your spacious plain―behold
A paradise of Eden, given immortality!

51. While through your hospitality the world stays peopled,
Caravans still flocking after caravans.

52. While you remain, fear no passing nights, for their risings
Are invariably fortunate, however long you live.

53. To one whose throne you guard, what fear of a raid?
No stratagems of fate can banish or exile you!

54. For you are the Prophet's household, and for the world
Gems, and glory a necklace threading all!

55. The sweet-smiling one has inclined to me in intimacy
And consented despite our distance and longing absence

56. If the sprigs of delight show among the branches
Illumine what you wish, and gather the ripeness!

57. Brighter her eyes' glance than Indian aloeswood
Sweeter her words' taste than bees' honey.

58. The magic of her eyes seduced me into passion
And the tilting of my heart inclined it toward her.

59. Once she visited me, though still estranged,
And desire took my body, soul, and mind all at once

60. The night she reconciled I gathered together her form
And realized she was most intimate company.

61. I stole away while my chaperones were sleeping
From the sweetened balcony, most delectable and luscious!

62. My heart's confidant reproaches me for love
But the censure resounds fruitlessly in my ears.

63. Though I pursue passion wantonly,
My aspiration is glory abounding and merit!

64. I go out and return, evermore
Seeking lofty aims―God be praised for occupation!

65. I ramble through virginal compositions ceaselessly,
To which I have been and remain forever partial.

66. Now with some light banter I send forth,
Now with some flirtations none before have uttered,

67. Now with a praise-poem, a garden of beauty I send
To the abundantly munificent and copiously bestowing lord

68. To the temple of prosperity, to the sanctuary of wealth
To the lofty pillar, to the flattened plain,

69. To the nobly descended, who in ascendancy
Has no match―equals are beheld through equals!―

70. To the glory of faith, Hosayn, whose resolutions
Have enriched him beyond horse or foot,

71. To the glorious grantor, most openhanded of those who stride
With palm or foot, most sublime who steps with a stride,

72. To the great heart whose openhandedness, should dearth's
Assailants constrain, would suffice over neediness,

73. To the sovereign whose kingdom matches his era's realms
Yet without them he exclusively claimed the merit!

74. To the branch of glory whose root is mankind's lord―
Blessed the branch from a generous root and origin!

75. Openhandedness has not ceased to distinguish his youth,
So he views no disgrace as viler than stinginess.

76. Fulfilling hopes' promises in due time,
Never saying without following words with deed,

77. When from his palm clouds of favor pour forth
What place dares lament his munificence' raid?

78. Bow in gratitude for the bounty you have loved,
Thanking the grantor of bounty and favor!

79. You have attained the desires you set forth,
As destiny wrapped its truth around your family,

80. And this age has come begging forgiveness for what
It formerly oppressed―so forgive its stumbling!

81. And grace it with handsome pardon, for humbly
It has approached you, in surrender and abasement.

82. Still you dwell in abundant wealth, attaining desires,
Vanquishing foes, possessing authority and dissolution.