1. I thought youth's garden would bloom again
But to you gray hair is an unforgiven sin

2. Do not blame the white hair, for it
Pricks the eyes of the bright like needles in skin

3. To those who love the black, your raven hair
Equals the darkness of heart and vision fair

4. My forgiving raven locks which I prized
Are now shamed by the dyes of old age despised

5. Beware her glancing eyes, their piercing dart
Is more fatal than the sharpest spear to heart

6. I quake in longing when she calls, for nothing
Is sweeter than hopes of love enthralling

7. She tempts and I yield, spent in her embrace
Thus my life is lost in joy and disgrace

8. Her phantom brought joy to quench fire inside
Till we shunned the wilds for the city's tide

9. They hide in teachers' sleeves like frightened fowl
Among branches of jujube and lotus foul

10. Her face was the moon unveiled for me at night
But for veil's shame not the true moon's light

11. My burning breath startled her, so I said
My love's a fire and my breath makes sparks spread

12. Her tears flowed faster, uniformly scattered
As prose and poetry together gathered

13. That loved shade we knew was too brief to enjoy
For lack of time, not lack of convoy

14. She granted delights at night beyond measure
Cold drinks and pleasures no riches can treasure

15. I stumbled in the darkness, hair disheveled
The meadow was a garden, my white hair petaled

16. The galaxy stretched across the ground below
Like grains floating upon a river's flow

17. Above our camel litter the Pleiades cluster
Gleamed like the spotted pelt of a tiger or panther

18. The dark night retreated, vanquished in the west
The blond dawn pursued hot on its heels at best

19. As if the stars and dawn shut their eyes perforce
After all-night vigil, overpowered by drowsiness

20. When the flock was disturbed by the cry of a grouse
Who splashed in the brook at the break of dawn's house

21. If I could mend the night's ripped cloak at dawn
With their hair I would patch that cloth, travel-worn

22. "Have you forgotten love of Motarrif?" she said
I said, "Just to hear puts my heart at ease."

23. You took my eyes and hearing when we met
Now eyeless and deaf how can new love beget?

24. Long ago you stole my heart, look and see
If any female or male resides there but thee

25. If you find any love there but yours efface it
Do not leave one shred or atom in its place

26. Your love conquered my heart so it was depraved
He who accepts love's rule is thus enslaved

27. A bright white radiance whose beautyforever
Lengthens the night and the night enhances her

28. The dimples' rosebud smile relates the hue
And scent of apple blossoms born anew

29. Were it anything but apple, the smile's perfume
Would not heighten at the hour of dews

30. She exceeds the bright like Abu Amr's palm
Surpasses the raincloud brimming with balm

31. God granted them open-handed clouds in plenty
Does the full moon itself give so bounteously?

32. A form created by God in glory's mold
Not in human proportions as we behold

33. A face whose smile betrays his sternness
Since a Frank's face reveals a man's character

34. He is a sea, but its gifts are pure
While the sea spits both wholesome and impure

35. Do not deny he has some meritorious traits
What sea does not cast forth pearls and coralline freight?

36. Proud yet gentle, distant yet close, his justice reigns.
He metes out sentences beyond appeals or complaints.

37. You who compare him to others, desist!
You attempt the impossible, give up your twist

38. If you seek a bottomless sea of glory, then gaze-
At Muhammad ibn Hussein, feast your eyes and give praise

39. His fame and repute in cities did peak,
He was praised in the wilds when traveling sheikh

40. His generosity increases despite his reserve
Just as cheeks' bloom enhanced by kohl verbs

41. Time relented and granted him more than due
Sometimes oysters yield pearls as virtues accrue

42. He occupies the center of every steep ascent,
As the pupil focuses between eyelids' crescent

43. Without him the enemy tastes no death by pen
A lion's claws without the lion are dull again

44. In him are glory and death, as a warrior's mail
Holds poison and antidote, bane and balm to avail

45. Whenever he pounced his fingers flexed to smite
Or his spears found their marks in the vulnerable site

46. Wounding thrusts issued that victims must bear
As stars pierce, not grazing the sky but fixed there

47. O Lord, I tread a path of complex implication
Rein me in with concise lucid expression

48. To speak in utmost brevity yet make clear
The gist, shunning laxity and austere

49. Calligraphy flowed gently like water
Meeting generosity, matching letter for letter

50. His spears like pens laid down in surrender
Inversely reflecting sunlight in its splendor

51. The bright meanings illuminate the black letters
For darkness reveals and highlights nature's mysteries

52. Neither all black resembles the pupil of the eye
Nor all white counted among houris on high

53. Unless paired excellently in an ideal match
Black and white perfected in appropriate detachment

54. Your letters tell not what their positions contain
For not all black obscures the eyes' windowpane

55. Nor does other white dazzle blackness the same
As houris' beauty is measured by unique acclaim

56. They leave the sun's page blank to scrawl on the sphere
Like crescent moons on the crescent eyelids appear

57. The spherical dots ring round like brows repeating
The diacritics between like pearls inset and fleeting

58. Your lines do not relay their own implication
For not all black is black to imagination

59. Nor does every white shine the same unless
Paired by the eyes' precision, nothing less

60. You emptied yourself to nurture the noble ones
While others grow palms and trees, you grow men like sons

61. When you trod Damascus, you sold but the ground
Your feet trod, at ambergris' price by the pound

62. A charity they sense not, whensoles press the dirt path
Your feet's touch made the dusty track a scented bath

63. Your palm's generosity moved the noblest to praise
As the sun borrows the stars' illuminating rays

64. Whom do you find, though they praise you, enhances their fame?
For praising the date palm's sway is praising its name

65. Whenever people's hands grasped and clutched you gave more
At gloom's darkness the gems shine all the more

66. Iraq turns her neck expectantly to imbibe your morning dew
Yearning for you, keeping vigil the long night through

67. Ever removed from all misfortunes that infect the rest
Delivered from fate and people's ways unblessed

68. No night blanketed nor dawn pursued in brightening hue
Nor birds trilled their hymns at the hour of dew

69. But you remained unperturbed by all worldly plights
Safe from the whims of fate and every blight