1. Her nights have passed, never to return,
While my eyes, though sleepy, do not sleep.

2. Days entice me with pleasures, though
Thoughts of her grace haunt me without cease.

3. I see their greeting in the blowing wind,
Their farewell amidst the lightning’s streak.

4. Once, time itself feared and obeyed me,
Events dreading wherever I would seek.

5. To kings enthroned I was Caesar in might,
My resolve made destinies cower and retreat.

6. Now, neither do tears speak from my eyes,
Nor flames scorch my ribs in their heat.

7. Passion frolics upon her traces still,
Like the rainbird on meadows replete.

8. None slakes my thirst but a falling teardrop,
Or a love-crazed heart poured at my feet.

9. They deemed me a branch in her raiment,
A blossom near her breast, in her pleat.

10. In one night, my hopes were ended,
Dawn losing the sun’s accustomed beat.

11. The stars of night complain that I shepherded them,
When will this hurting soul know defeat?

12. As if, when gazing at my side,
She thought the moon from the sky in my seat.

13. A charm like Mahmoud’s fair of face,
Radiant as his sun when bade repeat.

14. If she were judged truly, they’d know
She is that poetry full of wit and conceit.

15. By him they knew the mettle of poets,
And natural rhythm and temperament.

16. If ‘Amr heard his battle hymns,
The sword itself would refrain from retreat.

17. Or if they recited his like to Majnun,
He would forget even Layla in her bower sweet.

18. Never have I read a verse of the Book,
Without the cosmos reciting along in feat.

19. I see that he brought eloquence to life,
After Ibn Burd and al-Asma'i faced defeat.

20. Without your father's generous spirit,
He would not have hoped to make it replete.