هلموا اسمعوا أحجية أبت النقصا — Alshaghouri

Come, hear a riddle that admits no imperfection:

subtle in meaning, as it is beautiful in form.

And a slender one, gray-haired in her branches, whose saliva

is healing, like a sword blade that never tires of dancing.

As though she had something entrusted to the Pleiades,

so eagerly has she striven to reach it.

The sun's hand drew its fire toward her disk,

to shield the disk with it from the chill of her waters.

And you take any mark upon the earth that appears

on its cheek to be her biting and pinching it.

To the highest horizon she has risen, towering,

so we see al-Jawza as an earring in her ear.

And the belly of the earth has groaned beneath the weight of her tread,

just as the air has choked upon her upper part.

And she scatters pearls of silver over smooth rock,

so plentiful they can neither be counted nor tallied.

And around her grow towering branches,

on a rootstock that has become the gem of her ring.

And prostrate on the ground, bowing before her, lie

the three waterspouts that have banished imperfection.

She was freely bestowed by Him who took His servant by night

from the Highest Mosque to al-Aqsa Mosque,

through the hand of Abd Allah and the vizier who

has so often, through his kindness, favored people broadly and singled others out.

His generosity surpasses the waters of Jayrun's fountains,

so his petitioner takes money by the handful, not by the pinch.

Through him, the flourishing congregational mosque's eagle fluttered,

with thick-growing feathers, after it had gone bald.

And he filled its courtyard floor with marble paving,

where brick had once embraced plaster.

And when nakedness befell its walls and they donned

a shiver, he ordered it clad in mosaic.

So may the good fortune of the vizier's days endure;

for in them we have seen justice, security, and low prices.

And may he always be granted success in every affair,

so that his judgment is never set aside, nor his command disobeyed.