1. Why does my soul sacrifice itself for you though you spurn and abandon it?
For how long will I be patient while the slanderers abandon you?

2. O you whose beauty grace is dear, why do I reckon my burning love and agony as nothing?
O you who resemble the new moon yet are faithless like the night!

3. May God guide you, your poetry makes me more faithless.
Does not Caesar fear breaking your eyelids?

4. Is not your cheek Nu'man and your glance Munzir?
O eyes of the doe, your gaze makes me lose my wits,

5. And o most charming of eyelids, your glance is cross-eyed.
With the swords of your eyelashes that keep

6. Stabbing at my smitten heart and shattering it.
Your face has led many astray while I knew

7. That your beauty was the brightest.
I did not know your cheek was a paradise

8. Until your saliva appeared to me like the heavenly Kauthar.
In the kingdom of beauty which you belong

9. You are always aided to prevail and conquer.
Perplexed between despair that pains you

10. And hope, your eyelash is joyous, your cheek Ja'far.
So neither you are safe nor I wise in love,

11. O gazelle, shall I not beware of you?
Your charm is basil, your mole is amber,

12. Your lips ruby, your cheek a gem.
How strange that the dark man, on seeing

13. Your stature, melts though undoubtedly he is dark.
They said, 'Show patience,' I said, 'I am his victim,

14. Do victims show patience, O my people?'
She displayed her wrist to me but her glances ensnared me.

15. How amazing! Does the lion hunt the rat?
It is no wonder that since it has been using

16. Human minds, Harut's glance keeps bewitching.
O comfort of souls, do not tease much

17. For in love of you I am confused.
How many Iraq-bound caravans from Hijaz have hailed,

18. The zenith of beauty as most splendid and dazzling!
Abu Tahir, my Husaini heart has strung together verses,

19. Will your star, I wonder, appear to those who lie in wait?
You appeared a moon at night on a bent bough

20. As the necklace-adorned pigeons sang and cooed around you.
I wish I were to be buried beneath the branch

21. From which hangs the new moon's necklace.
I say to the cheek denying its mole,

22. 'Every twin has a spot, do not deny it.'
O fellow reveller, keep mentioning it for I have often

23. Got drunk on it, it is wine oft-repeated.
Who will protect my lips from kissing him,

24. The gazelle-eyed one, aloof and inaccessible?
He is water which, were it not for his crystal body

25. Restraining it, its subtlety would drip.
The guards noticed the radiance of his cheek

26. And charged the keeper of the wine to guard it.
Unlike what philosophers say, his slender waist

27. Makes the abstruse meaning eloquent and effective.
And when the charms of his cheek blossomed anew,

28. We will pardon shedding the veil from it.
We are men whose souls disdain

29. Suspicion and who scorn baseness,
The nobility of man lies in guarding his honor and chastity,

30. Dispensing generosity, and drawing a sharpened sword.
Some people's minds are pebbles to avoid

31. While others' are undoubtedly gems.
But by my life, the gem of wisdom is rare

32. As your wisdom, O Trustee of the Nation, rather, it is rarer.
A prince who recites verses of an opinion made eloquent,

33. Revealed from the place of revelation.
A prince whose eternal wonders of wisdom

34. Gush forth from his wisdom.
A prince under whom is the stewardship of favors

35. By which the elite are honored and prideful.
A prince under whose banner the elite submit

36. In obedience to what he commands.
A prince, he is the sword the King has prepared

37. For the audacious who covet the kingdom.
He has the nature of generosity, his judgment is decisive

38. For him, pardon is a lasting rule, it does not change.
His virtues are thriving like a lush meadow,

39. They transcend metaphor, rather they are greener.
His ranks are mighty due to his excellent achievements,

40. To enumerate them, praise cannot suffice.
So excellent is he whom a caller calls out to for praise,

41. A caller calling out, 'Indeed your fortune is greater!'
When we recall among us the kindnesses of his disposition,

42. And the morning breeze passes by us carrying his fragrance,
If it is said a sea, I say even the sea rages,

43. And if it is said a full moon, I say even the full moon can be eclipsed.
The elite rise above only three things:

44. A hand, a tongue, and a pure heart.
I do not see lasting glory for the glorious

45. Apart from God except what man is remembered for.
The noblest of men in the world is he who

46. Owes nothing to himself except what he sacrifices.
The most foolish of creation is he who blamed his soul

47. For the days' inconstancy as they fold and unfold.
I see striving to gain praise leads

48. To attaining nobility as all is predestined.
Why should I not strive to seek exaltation

49. And set out, my wings spreading in the starry night?
I will spur on my steed, wasting away,

50. On its back days conceal and reveal themselves.
Whether I attain what I hoped to attain

51. From God or I strived and am excused.
My friends, do not rest except with company

52. In which you have honor and pride.
By God, the circumstances of kingship have changed

53. And who is there, O Honored One, that does not change?
So do not mention a matter whose time has passed

54. Nor deny a merit you know more about.
Weigh each person by the measure of his merit

55. For you are more capable of fairness and justice.
Not everyone who gained affability is Hatim

56. Nor everyone courageous, Haydar.
Not everyone who showed valor is a writer

57. Nor everyone skilled at writing, a poet.
How many a poem an amateur recited

58. Which if a believer repeated would nearly disbelieve!
Houses whose dwellers have left lie empty and desolate

59. While the like of them we inhabited turn yellow!
Come let us guide praise to the refuge

60. Of the Trustee of Sublimities, for he is most deserving of praise.
Suffice him for pride the mention of the traces of his merit

61. When all else casts a shadow in the eye boasting.
My Lord, the days of the fasting month have passed

62. So obtain abundant reward, for man is recompensed.
By my life, it is the blessed month, but

63. Parting from you is a feast, your might makes radiant.
So receive the crescent of Eid with a glance

64. That makes it a full moon complete and beaming.
And break the fast of the hearts of the envious for they

65. Nearly crumble when they behold you.
And let the joy continue that was sung by the doves above the nests

66. As peace-signing doves for which might is a pulpit.
The caller of conviviality did not stand reciting:

67. Why does my soul sacrifice itself for you though you spurn and abandon it?