1. What have you prepared for this feast of manners
For I knew you always to excel and overcome

2. You chant extempore with verse overflowing
And bring forth words mid magic and wonder

3. You polish diction before my eyes until
I see the Indian blades gleaming in books

4. This is the feast, its horizons now apparent
While we are eager and full of anticipation

5. So summon eloquence for a peerless day
When rhetoric flowers in verse and speech

6. I called the rhymes when dawned the Emir’s feast
And they answered the summons without hesitation

7. Coming like outstretched hands joined
Over mankind, leaping to me expectantly

8. I picked from them every one in green mantled,
Lost in the foliage of its motley robe,

9. And my eloquence wavered, as I wondered
Should I commence with honour or glory and repute

10. O you whose attributes vie with my words
Rivalling all Arab glories in lineage

11. Ahmad has left no phrase for me to try
In praising you, so forgive me, do not blame

12. For I am not one who poetry raised his ambition
To monarchs, nor that Arabian knight

13. But your feast, O Abbas, has given me voice
Like the full moon freed the warbler’s singsong trill

14. The feast of accession reminded your nation
Of a day distinguished in eras and epochs

15. Auspicious its beginning, felicity its end,
And between, the finest life without blemish

16. The throne is joyful, the reign happy,
People granted gifts, time intimidated

17. And the king guarded on his royal throne
By God’s own eye, watched by eyes grown grey

18. Wisdom his adornment, justice his creed,
Fortune his glance dispelling distress

19. God’s will in Abbas was pre-destined
To his ancestors and subsequent generations

20. He is son of the noblest rulers and kings
And father held dear by lords of repute

21. You who thought poetry’s sweetness was in
Words most honeyed, though false, have strayed from propriety

22. Sweet versifying is verse Truth guards
From error and lies, like Tawfiq’s son’s ode