كَيفَ النُزوعُ عَنِ الصِبا وَالكاسِ

قِس ذا لَنا يا عاذِلي بِقِياسِ

How to abstain from youth and wine

How can I turn away from youthful passion and the cup?

Judge that for us, O reproacher by measure

Apply your logic here for us, O you who cast the blame.

وَإِذا عَدَدتُ سِنِيَّ كَم هِيَ لَم أَجِد

لِلشَيبِ عُذراً في النُزولِ بِراسي

And if I number my years how many are they, I cannot find

When I count up my years—however few they seem to be—

For gray hair an excuse in letting it fall on my head

I find no just excuse for gray to settle on my head.

قالوا شَمِطتَ فَقُلتُ ما شَمِطَت يَدي

عَن أَن تَحُثَّ إِلى فَمي بِالكاسِ

They said, you wrenched it, so I said, my hand has not wrenched

They said, "You have gone gray." I said, "My hand has not gone gray,

From urging to my mouth the goblet

Too weak to lift the brimming goblet to my waiting mouth."

صَفراءُ زانَ رُوائَها مَخبورُها

فَلَها المُهَذَّبُ مِن ثَناءِ الحاسي

Yellow, adorned are its meads boiled

A yellow vintage, whose tested proof adorns its form,

So for it is the refined praise of the taster

To which the taster offers up his most refined praise.

وَكَأَنَّ شارِبَها لِفَرطِ شُعاعِها

بِاللَيلِ يَكرَعُ في سَنا مِقباسِ

And as if its drinker from the excess of its radiance

It is as if the drinker, for the sheer force of its beams,

In the night swallows in the brightness of the lamp’s flame

Were sipping, in the dark of night, the light of a torch.

وَأَلَذَّ مِن إِنعامِ خُلَّةِ عاشِقٍ

نالَتهُ بَعدَ تَصَعُّبٍ وَشِماسِ

And sweeter than the favor of the privacy of a lover

More sweet than favors granted by a recalcitrant lover,

That met him after difficulty and aloofness

Won only after long refusal and distinct disdain.

فَالراحُ طَيِّبَةٌ وَلَيسَ تَمامُها

إِلّا بِطيبِ خَلائِقِ الجُلّاسِ

So comfort is a perfume, and its perfection

For wine is good, and yet its goodness is not complete

Is only in the scent of the fine companions

Without the noble nature of one's drinking companions.

فَإِذا نَزَعتُ عَنِ الغَوايَةِ فَليَكُن

لِلَّهِ ذاكَ النَزعُ لا لِلناسِ

So if I abstain from misguidance let

So if I must renounce this wayward path of error,

That abstinence be for God, not people

Then let that renunciation be for God, not for men.

وَإِذا أَرَدتَ مَديحَ قَومٍ لَم تَمِن

في مَدحِهِم فَاِمدَح بَني العَبّاسِ

And if you want to praise people from whom you expect

And if you seek to praise a people without falsehood

No praise, then praise the Abbasids

In laudatory verse, then praise the Banu Abbas.