1. Do you expect to cover passion with rejection,
While your body wastes away from the clearest signs?

2. Never! You cannot hide in the morning something already exposed
When dawn has cracked from its pillars.

3. You said, “Avoid al-Hejaz, for it
Has marred its roots with hunting lions.”

4. Yet I wanted to hunt the beauties of al-Hejaz, though fate
Did not allow you and you became one of its captives.

5. My questioner, she whom I love and my state—
What is the state of one whose heart is lost, its support?

6. My heart used to flutter during the nights of union,
So how can it be now with his rejection?

7. A heart growing in fire from my tears,
How can reason cool its burning?

8. Arrows of glances weren’t enough to kill me,
So he followed with spears of separation.

9. When he saw the intoxication in my gazing eyes,
He plucked a cheek-rose from the garden of his cheeks.

10. He locked his wrap, turned away distracted,
And withdrew while my eyelids kept vigil in insomnia.

11. In his nearness or distance, I have no fortune—
The absence of one who deprives is like his presence.

12. Sobs cutoff by anguish tied a knot
That lingered, throbbing in vein and wrist.

13. He wept at our separation, so our tears mingled.
Pearls met pearls in his teardrops and necklaces.

14. He shone like the full moon in its waxing,
Brilliance, and dawn in its blushing.

15. Would that he made the breakup an appointment
That he misses, like his past promises.

16. He hides his love, though it’s a fire, just as
The flint hides its spark amidst its wood.

17. I saw him in a throng of his army,
Each with a heart concealing affection.

18. The light of stars entwines with its like
In its breeze, whiteness, and thick branches.

19. He did me a favor but I denied it,
As if to say, “Your gifts are like your denial.”

20. Doves coo, seducing the malady of passion,
Alternating between meadows and distance.

21. Virtue personified in his beauty—
Like Muhammad ibn Salama in his generosity.

22. The sea, some of his limits. Merit, some
Of its witness. And victory, some of his soldiers.

23.
The signs of generosity show in his face

24. In his cheer, shyness, and prayers.
He who bestows freely became the spring

25. Of my soul. I ransom those near and far to him.
Welcoming guests while his wealth remains,

26. A delegation, not a host like its visitors.
And when he wants to reward the seekers of glory,

27. He obliges whether present or absent.

28. A Hatim in generosity when the dew is mentioned,
I imagined him as one of Hatim’s servants.

29.
He surpasses many who struggle to be generous

30. And exceeds them with his asceticism.
Their forearms in glory are like his arm,

31. And their standing in merit like his sitting.
By the measures of men are their deeds.

32. The sword’s cutting depends on its sharpness.
When he sees a solution for every matter,

33. Even if all men oppose him in hatred.
If he wants to accomplish what no one can bear,

34. He finds the solution however determined it may be.
And when an opportunity is missed, he profits

35. In seeking the heights, so excellence is between
His certainty and benefit.

36.
His pens have refined his land,

37. And their master submitted like their ink.
The arrows of fate and its ink

38. Give life to his family and friends.
When he aims his arrows

39. He hits the heart of his envious enemy.
The white dreams in the whiteness of his writing,

40. And likewise the black deaths in its blackness.

41. And if he asks for aid, he has aided with an army
Of stalwarts, victory marching under its banners.

42. And I'm amazed by a pen whose rights
Don't drown it in the sea of its composition.

43. He is not content with the glory of his ancestors,
Though they were not content with their ancestors’ glory.

44.
Days have been good to me due to his good deeds

45. That have watered glory with its freshness and decay.
He gave, was generous, and exceeded in seeking glory

46. Until he grew in generosity above its precedent.
The creation's most deserving to be called glorious

47. Is he whose glancing glory is like its decay.
Greetings to you who revived glory through your deeds

48. As you have spread dew while it vanished.
If time were a person who could speak,

49. It would sing your praises in prose and verse.
Whether I were a night, I’d be its holiest night,

50. Or were I a day, I’d be its festive day.
Your greetings and smile reveal a dew,

51. As do the clouds in their lightning and thunder.
Time persisted in misfortunes

52. Until you rose and became the luck of its luck.
Trust in God, for you are in