1. What did absence do to the homes of loved ones?
We knew them to frequent your land at first

2. Why does your mount descend with hasty strides?
Do you chance to find a home for devotion?

3. You are not fit for other than a lover's halt,
Who calls and returns humbly, submissively.

4. By God, my tears in protecting you and my vigil
Did you see me before, a wailing lover?

5. And my heart's throbbing with sorrows, do you see
It yearns to join the living wherever he bore hardships?

6. Beyond the departed are desolate places
Where the gaze of the lost is rendered confused

7. And over the desolate expanses every bright sword
Do you see it trying to slip between them?

8. God is Greatest! O she-camel, you left me
Perplexed with yearning in that expanse

9. You left me little of what you desire
Of tears that flow without cease

10. I will always yearn and not cease, crazed with your yearning
I water the shelters with my streaming tears

11. Our nights changed, so their fragrance turned
To grief, for time’s way is to change

12. Fate showed me every strange thing
That left my liver inflamed like embers

13. And I discarded my patience amid disasters, so they increased
My troubles, but I found bearing most seemly

14. Afflictions that kept me awake, so I did not cease on
A night of thick darkness, gloomy, starless

15. Until the face of my dawn shone radiantly
And the face of hopes beamed, graced with smiles

16. And the ill-omened stars fell, extinguished
When the night saw it turn away, veiled

17. Love his rising and the sun of the caliphate
It shone through him, illuminating the horizons

18. Its rays shone, and the goodness of his praise,
For there is a light above light that is revealed

19. He is the vizier of the king, of noble lineage
Who visits the Pleiades and the unarmed giants

20. His gaze is swifter than a loosed arrow
In every difficult matter, finding its mark lethally

21. And more valiant in managing affairs skillfully
When the wise man finds no recourse

22. He was given the lands, so his justice in them
Was a shade, and security in them a springs

23. He always watches over them with a wakeful eye
The protectors swore to never neglect them

24. He concludes speech when he ordains and when he speaks
His resolve recounts the inspired judgment

25. And when he utters, pearls spill from his words
Adorning the wrists and necklaces

26. Souls swoon over him from his refinements
But are held back by awe and loftiness of him

27. And you see the swords from his opinions
That if he meant their sharpness would be blunted

28. O you visiting Beirut, you have granted it
Grace that merits remembrance and loyalty

29. It was perplexed, not knowing whether to boast proudly
Of you or to reproach itself for inadequacy and be shy

30. It obtained fortune in your presence, for such
Has always been your way among mortals, to be just

31. Blessings poured over our lands through you
Until their abundance exceeded hopes

32. You made a happy future run its course over us
Meeting through your merit a happy future

33. And the spring arrayed our shelters with carpets
When it saw you approaching, it clothed them

34. And those flowers smiled, all of them
Studded with pearls, ornamented and crowned

35. They told your praises, which one with hasty capacity
Could spend his lifetime telling and still hurry

36. I tried to praise you but my pen betrayed me
I saw it tomorrow in my grasp, paralyzed

37. I saw your praise cannot be captured in words
And the praise of most I saw as affected

38. I blamed my falling short describing you, helpless
And you knew it, so you pardoned me graciously

39. Perhaps my failure in praising you indicates
More eloquently than any eulogy of mine could prolong

40. And dawn is clearer than any speaker's words
Dawn shone radiant when it blazed and brightened