آيات حسنك قد أبدت لنا عجبا

وكم لمرسل دمعي في هواك نبا

Your beauty’s signs have revealed wonders to us.

How many a message my tears’ emissary has borne in loving you!

يا تاركي مثلا من غير فاصلة

لا تجعل العتب يوما للجفا سببا

O you who leave me a byword without an ending,

Never make reproach a cause for estrangement.

رفقاً بصبّ قضى يوم النوى اسفا

وما قضى من وصال في الهوى اربا

Be gentle with a lover who died of grief on parting’s day,

Yet never fulfilled his desire for union in love.

واعطف لمضنى لغير الوجد فيك هوى

ما مال يوما ولو أفنيته وصبا

Show compassion to a wasted lover: toward any passion but yearning for you

He has never turned, though you consume him with suffering.

من لي به بابلي الطرف مقلته

هاروت منها استفاد السحر واكتسبا

Who will bring me that Babylonian-eyed one? His eye—

From it Harut learned and acquired magic.

ما زال يبسم منه الثغر عن برد

وطيب عرف عبير مازج الضربا

His mouth kept smiling, revealing hailstones

And the sweet fragrance of perfume mingled with white honey,

حتى اغتدى الدر في سلاكه صدفا

والمندل الرطب في اوطانه حطبا

Until pearls upon their strings became mere shells,

And fresh aloeswood in its native lands mere firewood.

ساق عليه سمات البشر قد ظهرت

اما تراه غدا بالراح مختضبا

A cupbearer upon whom the signs of gladness have appeared:

Do you not see him now stained with wine?

وقام يسعى بها واليس معتكر

فأطلعت من سماكاساتها شهبا

He rose to pass it round while [the night] was murky,

So it brought forth shooting stars from the heaven of its cups.

راح اذا مسها بالماء لامسُها

تخاله بشعاع لمزج ملتهبا

Wine—when someone touches it with water,

You would think him aflame with the radiance of its mingling.

ولست ادري اذا ما الماء لامسها

أأنجما اطلعت في الكأس أم حببا

And I cannot tell, when water touches it,

Whether it brings forth stars in the cup or bubbles.

في ليلة شهبها امست تراقبنا

فليس تخلو بها من اعين الرقبا

On a night whose stars began to watch us,

You are never free within it of watchers’ eyes.

يديرها طيب الالحان معربها

ظبي من الترك لكن جانس العربا

One with sweet melodies, clearly voiced, passes it round—

A gazelle from the Turks, yet akin to the Arabs.

اخو هلال ويعزى للنظير معا

بدر اذا ما بد غصنٌ اذا انتسبا

Hilal’s brother, and also traced to al-Nazir,

A full moon when he appears, a bough when he names his lineage.

حلو المراشف الا انه شنب

كأنما الدر في فيه جرى شنبا

Sweet-lipped, yet cool and bright of teeth,

As though pearls flowed in his mouth as cool, gleaming teeth.

بخده في الحواشي خط عارضه

لاما فأبدع بالريحان ما كتبا

Along the margins of his cheek, his down has traced

A lam—how exquisite its writing in basil!

ما شام طرفي برقا من ثنيته

الا وانشأت من دمعي له سحبا

Never did my eye glimpse lightning from his front tooth

But I raised clouds of tears for him.

أتعبت روحي على راح بمرشفه

وربما فاز بالراحات من تعبا

I wearied my soul seeking wine at his lip,

Yet those who toil sometimes attain repose.

اني رضيت بما يرضيه من تلفي

فما علي اذا ما عاذلي غضبا

I am content with whatever pleases him in my undoing;

So what is it to me if my reprover grows angry?

والله لا حال قلبي عن محبته

يوما ولا ام لي ان عقني وابا

By God, my heart shall never turn from loving him,

Not for a day—may I be motherless!—even if he slights and spurns me.

ولا الفت الكرى ان قلت مقتفيا

ردوا على طرفي النوم الذي سلبا

Nor shall I grow fond of sleep, though I say, echoing another,

‘Restore to my eye the sleep that he stole!’

ولا أطعت لشيطان السلو ولي

على هواه شهاب قد سما رتبا

Nor shall I obey the devil of forgetting, while I have

Against its whims Shihab, a shooting star exalted in rank:

قاضي القضاة الذي ما رمت نائله

الا وفقري مني حاول الهربا

The chief of judges, whose bounty I never seek

Without my poverty attempting to flee from me.

فهو الجواد الذي فاق الجياد وقد

اعيا السوابق في شأو العلا طلبا

He is the generous one who outpaces noble steeds, and has

Exhausted the frontrunners in their race for glory’s heights.

اقلامه بعطاياه لها طرب

فهل سمعتم بشيء يطرب القضبا

His pens thrill with delight at his gifts;

Have you heard of anything that sets reeds rejoicing?

ما حاتم واياس في ندا وذكا

ما قيس في الراي ما قسٌّ اذا خطبا

What are Hatim and Iyas beside him in bounty and wit,

Or Qays in judgment, or Quss when he speaks?

وفي البلاغة ما سحبانها فلكم

من ذيل فخر على سحبان قد سحبا

And in eloquence, what is its Sahban? How many

A train of pride he has trailed over Sahban!

ان قلت بحر نوال لم اقل شططا

او قلت حبر علوم لم اقل كذبا

If I call him a sea of bounty, I do not exaggerate,

Or call him a master of learning, I tell no lie.

سامي الذرى ترفع الاثقال راحته

ولم تجد تعبا كلا ولا نصبا

Lofty of summit, his palm lifts heavy burdens

And feels no weariness—no, nor fatigue.

بظلها قد أمدتنا ونائلها

يوم الندا فحمدنا الروض والسحبا

With its shade it has sustained us, and with its bounty,

On the day of giving, so we praised the garden and clouds.

افديه واري زناد الفضل ادبني

بمدحه فاقتبست العلم والادبا

I would ransom him, who strikes sparks from virtue’s flint; he schooled me

In praising him, and so I gleaned learning and refinement.

لم لا اقول لقد جاد الزمان به

ولا اقول استرد اليوم ما وهبا

Why should I not say, ‘Time has indeed bestowed him,’

And not say, ‘Today it reclaimed what it gave’?

ان كان دهري نبل اليوم يسلب ما

يعطي فتاب وها قد رد ما سلبا

If, [before] today, my fate would snatch away what

It gave, it has repented: now it has restored what it took.

متى بشركي اقضي حق واجبه

ومن بمدحك يقضي بعض ما وجبا

When can I, with my [thanks], discharge his rightful due?

And who, by praising you, can discharge even part of what is owed?

ياذا الذي رفع المجد الاثيل له

بيتا ومدت به العليا له طنبا

O you for whom deep-rooted glory has raised

A house, whose tent-rope the heights have stretched through you,

منحتني مذ اتاح الفقر بي نعما

من النوال فما لي لم اقل ذهبا

Since poverty befell me, you have bestowed blessings on me

Of bounty—why did I not call them gold?

فامدد يمينا لغير البذل ما صحبت

من اجل ذاك لها الدينار ما صحبا

So extend a right hand that has never accompanied anything but giving;

For that reason, no dinar has kept it company.

واستجلها مدحة لولاك شاعرها

ما كان فيك اجاد الشعر واقتضبا

And behold it unveiled, a panegyric whose poet, but for you,

Would never have excelled or improvised verse in your praise.

لو ابصر المتنبي فضل معجزها

لقال عندي لهذا المدح أي نبا

Had al-Mutanabbi seen the excellence of its miracle,

He would have said, ‘What tidings of such praise have I?’

او النباتي لو جارىبرقته

ما رشحت لأرته القطر منسكبا

Or if al-Nabati, with his delicacy, tried to rival

What it exudes, it would show him rain pouring down.

او ابن حجة لو رام الوقوف بها

لطاف يسعى الى ابياتها عجبا

Or if Ibn Hujjah sought to stand before it,

He would circle, hastening toward its verses in wonder.

قصيدة بطرب الاسماع قائلها

يهتز عطف السخا من حسنها طربا

A poem whose reciter [delights] the ears;

Generosity’s flank sways with delight at its beauty.

فاسلم ودم وابق في امن وفي دعة

يا خير مولى كفيت الشر والنوبا

So be safe, live on, and remain in security and ease,

O best of patrons, may you be spared evil and calamities.

لا زال مدحي يتلى فيك مجمله

مفصلا يملأ الاسفار والكتبا

May my praise of you be forever recited, its essence

Unfolded in detail, filling volumes and books,

ما طاب نشر الثنا يوما لمنتشق

وفاح عطر وهبت في الصباح صبا

As long as praise’s fragrance delights those who breathe it,

And perfume wafts, and the east wind blows at dawn.