ومحتجب كم دونه من أسنة

وكم ذقت من طعن عليه وأهوال

And a veiled one—how many spearheads bar the way to it!

And how much stabbing and terror I have tasted on its account!

تجرعت طعم الصاب من دون رشفه

وما نالني منه سوى رقة الحال

I swallowed the taste of bitter sap before sipping it,

And gained from it nothing but straitened circumstances.

فمن لي اذا غسلت مرشفه وقد

تطاول نحوي كل اسمر عسال

Who, then, will help me when I wash its lips, while

Every brown, swaying spear has stretched toward me?

جنين له ام ولكن حلية

به حملت في العصر والزمن الخالي

An unborn child with a mother, yet an ornament

Has carried it in this age and in times gone by.

رقيق الحواشي كامل الطرف قد اتى

به كم تحلت ذات قرط وخلخال

Delicate at the edges, perfect at the tip, it has come;

With it, how many a wearer of earrings and anklets has adorned herself!

بتصحيفه اجفان عيني تكحلت

وذلك لما ان بعدت باميال

With its mispointed form, my eyelids were lined with kohl,

And that was when I had gone miles away.

لرقته قطر النباتي ينتمي

لما جاء فيه من ضروب وامثال

For its delicacy, Qatr al-Nabati is akin to it,

For the forms and comparisons found within it.

ومن شغف قال الحلاوي ليتني

نسيت نسيبي في هواه واغزال

And, out of passion, al-Hallawi said, 'Would that I

Had forgotten my amatory verse and love poems in my love for it!'

وان هووا في منك في الحال مرسلا

غنيت به عن كل راح وجريال

And if it comes from you, sent at once [probable reading; text unclear],

With it, I would dispense with every wine and crimson draught.

فيا مدعي الالغاز دونك حله

فمنه لك التعقيد يظهر في الحال

So, you who profess mastery of riddles, take up its solution;

For from it, the complexity will become apparent to you at once.

فلا زلت للالغاز توضح رمزها

وغامضها تبديه من غير اشكال

May you never cease to clarify the riddles' code,

And disclose what is obscure in them, without ambiguity.

ولا زلت ترقى في سما المجد والعلا

وتحيى عزيزا في سعود واقبال

And may you ever rise in the sky of glory and eminence,

And live honored, in good fortune and prosperity.