1. أطلع شمسَ الراح ليلاً أغيدُ

    كأنه من نورها مجسَّدُ

    A graceful youth made the sun of wine rise at night,

    as though he were embodied from its light.

  2. وزفَّها تحت الدجى فاشتبهتْ

    مدامهُ وخدّه المورَّد

    He ushered it beneath the darkness, until they seemed alike—

    his wine and his rose-red cheek.

  3. فلستُ أدري أجلاً لامعةً

    بكفه بها المدامُ عسجد

    I cannot tell: did he unveil a gleaming cup

    in his hand, where the wine is gold,

  4. أم يده البيضاء في رقتها

    بها شعاعُ خده يتقد

    or is it his white hand, in its delicacy,

    where the radiance of his cheek blazes?

  5. ساقٌ من الجوزاء وهو المشتري

    نطاقهُ وعقده المنضَّد

    A cupbearer—Jupiter himself—with al-Jawza

    as his girdle and his strung necklace.

  6. شمس الضحى تودُّ لو كانَ ابنها

    وهي لها بدرُ السماء ولد

    The morning sun wishes he were her son,

    though the full moon of heaven is her child.

  7. إذا أدارتْ كفه لثامَه

    خلتَ الثريا للهلال تعقد

    When his hand adjusts his veil,

    you imagine the Pleiades tying it for the crescent moon.

  8. من لي بقطف زهرةٍ من خده

    وعقربُ الصدغ عليها رصد

    Who will let me pluck a blossom from his cheek,

    while the scorpion of his temple-lock keeps watch over it?

  9. مورَّدُ الوجنة ما استخجلته

    إلاَّ وماء الورد منها بدد

    Rose-cheeked—never have I made him blush

    without his scattering rosewater from that cheek.

  10. مطَّردٌ في خدِّه ماء الحيا

    ماء الحيا في خدِّه مطّرد

    Flowing upon his cheek is the dew of bashfulness;

    the dew of bashfulness upon his cheek is flowing.

  11. علقته نشوانَ من خمر الصبا

    سبطَ القوام فرعه مجعَّد

    I loved him, drunk as he was on the wine of youth,

    lithe of stature, his hair curly.

  12. أهيفُ كم تعطفتْ قامته

    وهو لألحان الغنا يردد

    Slender-waisted, how often his stature swayed,

    while he repeated the melodies of song—

  13. تعطُّف البانة يثنيها الصَبا

    وفوقها قمريَّةٌ تغرّدُ

    the sway of a bān tree bent by the east wind,

    with a turtledove warbling above it.

  14. بدرٌ ولكن في الجمال يوسفٌ

    لحسنه بدرُ السماء يسجد

    A full moon—yet in beauty a Joseph,

    before whose beauty the full moon of heaven prostrates itself.

  15. وشوقيَ الكامل ليس حرُّه

    يطفيه إلاَّ ريقهُ المبرّد

    And my longing is complete; its heat is not

    quenched by anything but his cooling saliva.

  16. ما الحسن إلاَّ جمرةٌ بخدِّه

    وجمرة في القلب منِّي تقد

    Beauty is only an ember in his cheek,

    and an ember blazes in the heart within me.

  17. أبردُ هاتيك بلثم هذه

    يا من رأى ناراً بنارٍ تبرد

    I cool that one by kissing this one—

    oh, who has seen fire cooled by fire?

  18. نارٌ ولكن هي عندي جنَّةٌ

    من لي لو فيها فمي يخلّد

    A fire, yet for me a paradise:

    who will grant that my mouth might dwell in it forever?

  19. كم ليلةٍ بات بها مُنادمي

    إلى الصباح والوشاة رقّد

    How many a night my drinking companion stayed with me

    until morning, while the tale-bearers slept!

  20. وسنان لم أجذبْ إليَّ خصره

    إلاَّ ثنى أعطافه التميُّد

    He was drowsy; never did I draw his waist toward me

    without his swaying bending his sides,

  21. حتَّى يُرى وخصرُه من رقةٍ

    عليَّ في انعطافه منعقد

    until his waist, so delicate, seemed

    knotted around me in its bending.

  22. أعدْ عليَّ صاحبي ذكر الطِلا

    وعدّ عما يزعم المفنَّد

    Repeat to me, my companion, the mention of wine,

    and turn aside from what the faultfinder claims.

  23. راحك يا ابن النشوات فاغتنمْ

    حظك منها والعذار أسود

    Your wine, O son of ecstasies! Seize

    your share of it while your cheek-down is black,

  24. وعصر أطرابك في اقتباله

    والعيش غضٌّ لك فيه رغد

    while the season of your joys is in its beginning,

    and life is fresh, with ease and plenty for you.

  25. وعاقر الراح يحيِّيك بها

    شريكها في اللبِّ إذ يغرِّد

    And drink wine: he who greets you with it

    shares its power over the mind when he sings.

  26. ما ولدتْ أمُّ الجمال مثله

    وأقسمتْ بأنها ما تلد

    Mother Beauty has borne none like him,

    and has sworn that she never will.

  27. ما استجمع اللذات إلاَّ مجلسٌ

    على معاطاة الكؤوس يعقد

    Only a gathering brings all pleasures together,

    one convened for passing cups around.

  28. ما هو إلاَّ للندامى فلكٌ

    به من الكأس يدور فرقد

    It is nothing but a firmament for drinking companions,

    where a cup, a Farqad star, revolves.

  29. أو روضةٌ فيها الخدود مجتنى

    من السقاة والشفاه مورد

    Or a garden, where cheeks are fruit to pluck

    from the cupbearers, and lips a watering-place;

  30. وشادنٌ وفرته ريحانة

    بطيب ريّاها النسيمُ يشهد

    and a young gazelle whose full hair is a basil sprig—

    the breeze bears witness to its sweet fragrance.

  31. يا طالب العدل هلمَّ ظافراً

    فالعدلُ شخصٌ قد حواه بلد

    O seeker of justice, come triumphant:

    for justice is a man whom a city holds.

  32. أما ترى الفيحاء كيف أصبحت

    والجور من ورائها مشرَّد

    Do you not see how al-Fayha has become,

    with tyranny banished from her surroundings?

  33. هذا حسام الدين بين أهلها

    أصبح والملكُ به مقلَّد

    Here is Husam al-Din among her people;

    he has arisen, and the king is girded with him.

  34. جرت ملوكُ العصر في مضماره

    لغايةٍ إلاَّ عليه تبعدُ

    The kings of the age have raced in his course

    toward a goal distant to all but him.

  35. فجاء يجري سابقاً ما مسحتْ

    غرَّة علياه سوى العز يد

    He came racing foremost; no hand has stroked

    the white blaze of his eminence but Honor's.

  36. فقلْ لمن يطمع في عليائه

    قفْ صاغراً ليس إليها مصعد

    So tell whoever aspires to his lofty rank:

    Halt, humbled: there is no ascent to it.

  37. فالمجد إرثٌ والندى سجيةٌ

    والحمد كسبٌ والعلاء مولد

    Glory is his inheritance, generosity his nature,

    praise his earning, and loftiness his birthright.

  38. تبصرُ في رواقه محجّباً

    منه ولا حاجبَ إلاَّ السؤدد

    You behold him veiled in his portico,

    with no chamberlain screening him but nobility.

  39. قد خدمت أقلامه بيض الظبا

    تُصدرها عن أمره وتورد

    Bright sword-blades have served his pens,

    which send them forth and bring them back at his command.

  40. سيفٌ بكف الملك منه قائمٌ

    مقامَ خديه الطلا والعضُد

    A sword in the king's hand, in whom stand

    the necks and the upper arm in place of its two sides:

  41. منزلتان ليس في كليهما

    ينوب عنه الصارم المجرَّد

    two stations, in neither of which

    can the unsheathed blade replace him.

  42. وأنتَ حيث باسمه شاركته

    لا تفتخرْ يا أيها المهنَّد

    And you, since you share his name,

    do not boast, O blade of Indian steel.

  43. فهو على هام العداة منتضىً

    دأباً وأنت تنتضي وتغمد

    For he is drawn against the heads of foes

    unceasingly, while you are drawn and sheathed.

  44. إن أشعرتك رهبة هيبته

    فمنه في صدر النديِّ أسد

    If the dread of his majesty stirs you,

    there is a lion in him at the assembly's head:

  45. أغلبُ لا يطمح في حضرته

    طرفٌ ولا ينطق فيها مذود

    thick-necked—no eye rises in his presence,

    and no tongue speaks there.

  46. مصورٌ في شخصه روحُ النهى

    عليه أبراد الفخار جُدد

    The spirit of wisdom is embodied in his person,

    with new cloaks of glory upon him.

  47. وغيره يغريك حسنُ شكله

    ومنه ما في البرد إلاَّ جسد

    Another beguiles you with the beauty of his form,

    yet beneath his cloak there is nothing but a body.

  48. أبلجُ عنه وإليه في الندى

    تروى أحاديثُ الندى وتُسند

    Radiant-faced: from him and to him, in bounty,

    the tales of generosity are narrated and traced.

  49. لهم نداهُ مشركٌ في وفره

    ومدحهم حقاً له موحِّد

    His bounty makes them partners in his plenty,

    while their praise truly declares him unique.

  50. يا خيرَ من زارَ الثناءُ ربعَه

    فزار أزكى من نماهُ محتد

    O best of those whose abode praise has visited,

    thus visiting the purest ever nurtured by lineage,

  51. أليكها سيارةً مع الصَبا

    تتهم في نشر الثنا وتنجد

    take it, travelling with the east wind,

    through Tihama and Najd as it spreads praise.

  52. سحَّارة الألفاظ بابليَّةً

    أمُّ الكلام مثلها لا تلد

    Bewitching in its words, Babylonian:

    Mother Speech bears none like it.

  53. بل كلُّ معنى جاهليٍ قد غدا

    يودُّ منها أنه مولَّد

    Rather, every pre-Islamic poetic theme has come

    to wish it were a later-born offspring of this poem.

  54. لا تحمد العودَ على قافيةٍ

    ما كلُّ عودٍ في الأمور أحمد

    Do not praise the return to a rhyme:

    not every return in affairs is more praiseworthy;

  55. أنتَ فدمْ سيّد أبناء العلى

    ونظمها للشعر فيك سيّد

    you are—so remain lord of the sons of high rank,

    and its verse is lord of poetry in your praise.