من الحروف حروفٌ هن كالعرض ال

مجهول تغييره في سمعنا ظهرا

Letters, some are like the unseen breadth,

Whose change in our hearing has appeared,

تبدو لإشباعها في لفظِ مُشبِعها

حروفُ علتها بها الكلامُ جرى

They seem to saturate in the utterance that saturates them,

The words have exalted them and flowed through them.

ضَمٌّ وفتحٌ وكسرٌ للبناءِ أتتْ

أسماؤها وبهذا الحكمُ قد شهرا

Assimilation, opening, and breaking for building came,

Their names thus have become well-known.

وثم رفعٌ ونصبٌ جاء بعدهما

خفضٌ لإعرابٍ ما في لفظه ذُكرا

Then raising and lowering came after them,

And genitive for the declension that is mentioned in the utterance.

والجزمُ يذهبها مع السكونِ فلا

تسمعْ لها منذ لفظٍ واردٍ خبرا

And liaison takes them away with stillness, so

No sound of them is heard since an incoming utterance.

وما تولد عنها حين تشبعها

لكي يقضي منها اللافظُ الوَطَرا

And what they give rise to when saturating them

So that the utterer fulfills them with vigor.

كواو أو ياء أو ما جاء من ألف

حروف مٍّد ولينٍ تشبه القدرا

Waw, or ya, or what came of alif,

Letters of extension and softness resembling the cooking pot.