أما لعيني طليح الشوق تغميض — Albohtry

Can the eyes of one wearied by longing not close?

Or has slumber been washed from the lovesick one's eyelids?

The withholding beloved's phantom came to us and woke us

with its fragrance—or was the musk's seal broken open?

She has wondrous coquetries, which never cease

to kindle and incite passionate love within us.

The apple of a cheek, when its charms turn red,

is kissed and bitten by a furtive glance.

And gleaming teeth show you pearls strung in order,

as though, in hearty laughter, they were hailstones.

If knowing what you do not know were enough for you,

a hint would surely have sufficed you instead of plain speech.

Why have I drawn close to my foe, when I remember myself

being shunned by a foe, formidable though he was?

And new substitutes were brought me, which I found irksome:

unwinding in place of winding, and demolition in place of building.

Until I chose things I used to reject;

and a thing may one day be chosen, though rejected.

And age has turned to undoing what it bound fast,

and everything that age bound fast is undone.

Will fruit come from Ibn Nasr's munificence through

verse composed and carried on reciters' tongues?

Like jewelry polished by its maker's hand,

in it two elements blend: gilding and silvering.

Calamities and the upheavals of time wear away, but not

the rhymes, still standing, nor the metrical patterns.

If anyone wishes to count his favors,

his bounty, lavished on petitioners, defies the count.

He gave abundantly, and none could rise to rival him,

like a bull camel guarding his domain though hobbled.

Let a man of gloomy, dark character be his ransom—

an untried man, held back from attaining glory.

I shall surely thank you: gratitude, near at hand,

is a duty imposed on the recipient of kindness.

Which of your two gifts has stars that have not shone—

your dapple-gray mules, or your white silver coins?