1. The lover wept, his hands shaken by yearning,
Mute, with tears as his speech;

2. No heart left but mostly dead,
Nothing remaining but his attachment.

3. Passion was not enough till it claimed him,
An age enticing him to every radiance.

4. An age excelling in throwing him down,
Tearing him apart without ceasing.

5. An adversary who never stopped dividing my unity,
Would that sorrow could unite what it divides!

6. I hereby divorce nobility’s daughter
If ahead of sweet supposition I don’t race to it.

7. Woe if contentment is not solace for me,
So my face’s shame is a garment I can’t wear.

8. Who will steady my heart with tranquility,
And close my eyelids so I shut them?

9. I crave a moon whose perfection is complete
Rising from the west’s edge radiantly.

10. When he smiles and darkness still persists
Lightning flashes from his mouth sparkling.

11. Would that the fantasies that used to haunt me
Became, instead of them, bodies I embrace.

12. My ailing friends, a call from you —
For far has your yearning taken you.

13. Take them back toward the west, perhaps
The breeze that blows will rend what blocks it.

14. After them, no hope left for my soul in life,
Alas for the charm of a face now lusterless!

15. Yet in Abu l-Qasim I’ve hope,
And if far, I will seek & unite with him.

16. From his gesture has flowed in my conscience
At my side & acceptance what I verify.

17. If I take refuge in him, no care shadows me,
With companionship I meet & comfort him.

18. One who always led, thanks to his traits,
Every heart far from him finds formed by him.

19. A natural born, though in night’s darkness, saw his perfections,
And every mute by his benevolence finds speech.

20. Glory took shape in a form resembling him,
And pearls are water, taking shape in water.

21. Inborn disposition is something in him returning
To eloquence whose time to speak has come.

22. O you who behold the ages, look on his letters’ beauty,
What you observe will relate you to its scattered threads.

23. Let no one aspire to his rank,
As the pit’s top equals not the mountain’s peak.

24. None like the Hamdanids in honor —
Had he been a star, the stars would love him!

25. Planets in the sky of glory rose
From glowing youth not glimpsed by me.

26. Standards of knowledge and literature — each lad
Among them when decent excels him.

27. In Abu l-Qasim the highest, peerless,
A supremacy that is a crown whose circlet he unties.

28. He is his father’s son in governance,
And in gaining the lofty, his excellence.

29. Branch and origin are bywords become,
As when the forearm’s measured by its elbow.

30. O Hamdanids’ lamp, prayer of one
Shadowed by a cloud that still darkens him.

31. The full moon rose in your horizon, then a
Cloud from nothingness concealed and destroyed it.

32. To you my precious poetry’s necklace I dedicate,
As pearls threaded, and musk set free.

33. So look, weigh, critique — for critique you are suited,
Not like the crown for the house of glory squeezed.

34. With the auspicious horizon afire, dam
Eavesdroppers so the spark burns them!