1. أدِكْرَى حَبيبٍ أَبْرَزَتْ دُمْيَةُ القَصْر

    فَجَلَّتْ وجَلّت بل جَلَتْ رَبَّةَ الخِدْرِ

    Has the palace's fair idol brought forth a memory of a beloved?

    So she grew magnificent and revealed—nay, unveiled—the lady of the inner chamber.

  2. تَوارَى ابنُ بُرْدٍ فيهِ لما بَدا لَهُ

    سَنا ما سَنا تِلكَ الأَهِلَّةِ والبَدْرِ

    Ibn Burd faded from view in it when he beheld

    a radiance—what is the radiance of those crescents and the full moon beside it?

  3. وأسْقطَ سَقْطَ البَرْهَمِيّ وَصَرّعَ ال

    صَّريعَ وأَزْرَى بالنّباتي والعُذْري

    And it toppled al-Barhami's Saqt and struck down al-

    Sariʿ, and looked down on al-Nabati and al-ʿUdhri.

  4. عَلَتْ بِعَليٍّ فَوْقِ بِرْجيسَ رِفْعَةً

    ولم تَرْضَ أَقْدارَ الدّرارِيّ والدُّرِّ

    It raised Ali above Jupiter in eminence,

    and was not content with the ranks of glittering stars and pearls.

  5. إذا شُرِّفَتْ من جانِبِ النّظْمِ يُرْتجى

    فإنَّ ابنَ يَحْيَى لامِرا شرفُ الشعر

    If it is honored in the realm of verse, as one may hope,

    then Ibn Yahya is, beyond dispute, the glory of poetry.

  6. مَحاسِنُ يَفْنَى دونَ إدْراكِ شَأْوِها

    حِسابي فَرَوْمي حَصْرَها عاقَهُ حَصْري

    Beauties that, before their full extent is reached, exhaust

    my reckoning; so my attempt to enumerate them was thwarted by my speechlessness.