1. By night, a moon passed round a sun of wine

    among boon companions like the stars of dawn.

  2. And in the cup are brilliant bubbles,

    smiling to reveal beauties' rows of front teeth.

  3. As though the cupbearer were a gazelle that grazed

    on daisy blossoms with daisies for lips.

  4. He never appeared to a lover but that lover defied,

    for love of him, the blame of reprover and censor.

  5. With glances and stature he does what

    bright swords and brown-shafted spears do.

  6. Riotous in his glances, drunken in them,

    in his intoxication, my friend, he is not sober.

  7. And how can he sober up, when from his cup

    and his saliva he blends wine with wine?

  8. Indeed, the sons of the Turks, in their warfare

    and their peace, have never ceased their combat.

  9. Whoever flees the heat of their war's blaze

    is someone other than me: I declare, 'No retreat.'

  10. For they are both my desire and my beardless youths;

    so turn me away from every graceful, ample-hipped woman.

  11. And strung pearls suffice me

    for beauty—not the sheltered eggs of ostrich nests.

  12. My speech is neither corrupt nor

    deficient: take it in earnest, not in jest.

  13. To me, fault and corruption are nothing but

    my praising anyone other than Ṣalāḥ al-Kāmilī.

  14. He is the one who, if he gives, enriches—or if

    he names his lineage, soars above generosity's highest heaven.

  15. When his smiling mouth appeared to me,

    I became certain of good, and success shone forth.

  16. His auspicious bird has always

    flown only on the wing of success.

  17. Who can rival him when he plunges into

    the twin seas of love poetry or noble praise?

  18. He quivers at praise as spears quiver

    on battle's day, in rapture and delight.

  19. All masters of poetry, beside his excellence,

    are like al-Suhā in the radiance of dawn's face.

  20. He casts the highest-valued gaming arrow and gains

    the summit of glory with the highest arrows.

  21. He rose to eminence through glory and generosity alike;

    and a man's generosity is nothing but gain.

  22. He gives generously of wealth and influence on the

    spot; both kinds are freely available from him.

  23. For King al-Kāmil, his counsel brings

    full victory in morning or evening marches.

  24. O Nāṣir al-Dīn, you have left the foes

    headless by the breasts of broad blades.

  25. Their blood, a torrent, reached the heights,

    until it lay outspread on the highest valley flats.

  26. May good fortune never cease upon his kingdom,

    an endowment, never decreed to depart,

  27. so long as a gray dove sings in a grove

    and her sister answers her in lament.

Sol 6.1