1. لو حدَّثوا هُومير في دِيماسهِ

    ببديع صنعكَ لاستردَّ حياتَه

    If they told Homer in his crypt

    Of your wondrous work, he would regain his life,

  2. ولهَبٌ يطريءُ همَّةً عرجت الى

    فلك العلى مذ عرَّبت ابياتَهُ

    And spring up to praise an aspiration that ascended to

    The sphere of glory since you rendered his verses into Arabic.

  3. ما كان يحسبُ ان اقمار الدُجى

    هبطت لتمنح نُورَها مشكاتَهُ

    He had never imagined that the moons of darkness

    Had descended to bestow their light on his lamp-niche.

  4. لولا سليمانٌ يُذيع مفاخراً

    احي بها تحت التراب رفاتهُ

    Were it not for Sulayman proclaiming glories

    With which he revived his remains beneath the earth,

  5. جهلَ الزمانُ واهلُهُ لا سيَّما

    نحن الاعاربُ شِعرَهُ ونكاتهُ

    The age and its people would have remained ignorant—especially

    We Arabs—of his poetry and its subtleties.

  6. كُن كيفما شاءَ الزمانُ فانتَ في

    عصر البيان مزيّنٌ مِرآتِهُ

    Be as Time wills; for you, in

    The age of eloquence, adorn its mirror.

  7. ولأَنتَ ما اعتلَّ القريضُ طَبيبُهُ

    ودواؤُهُ بل باعثٌ امواتهُ

    And whenever poetry falls ill, you are indeed its physician,

    And its cure—nay, the raiser of its dead.

  8. واذا ترنَّم بالبلاغة مِنبَرٌ

    كنتَ المبلّغ للملا اصواتهُ

    And when a pulpit sings with eloquence,

    You are the one who carries its voices to the multitude.

  9. لم القَ قبلكَ باذلاً دينارَهُ

    وحياتهُ ومبذّراً اوقاتهُ

    Before you, I never met one who gave his dinar

    And his life, and lavished his hours,

  10. عفواً بلا اجرٍ ليحبو أمَّةً

    خِدَماً تخوّل عزَّها ما فاتَهُ

    Freely, without pay, to bestow on a nation

    Services that grant its glory what it had lacked.

  11. لو انصفوا نحتوا لهُ اكبادَهم

    صنماً يمثّل للزمان هُداتهُ

    Had they been just, they would have carved their livers for him

    Into a statue showing Time its guides.

  12. زحزحتَ عن أفُق الكلام غمامَهُ

    وكبحتَ عن عرش النظام طُغَاتهُ

    You cleared its clouds from the horizon of speech,

    And held its tyrants back from the throne of verse;

  13. وحميتَ حَوزَتهُ وصنتَ ذماره

    ودفعتَ عن خدر البيانِ غواتَهُ

    And guarded its domain and preserved its honor,

    And drove its seducers from eloquence's secluded chamber.

  14. لم يلقَ دهرك وهو عَضبٌ صارمٌ

    يفري الاماني من يفلُّ شَباتهُ

    Your age, itself a keen, cutting sword, had never found

    As it cleaved hopes, anyone who could blunt its edge,

  15. حتى بدت آياتُ فضلك اسهماً

    راحت تبدّدُ كالقطيع كماتهُ

    Until the signs of your excellence appeared as arrows

    That went on to scatter its armored warriors like a flock.

  16. حبَّبتَ لي التمداحَ كنتُ اعافُهُ

    حتى عشقتُ بمدح ذاتَك ذاتَهُ

    You made praise dear to me, though I used to shun it,

    Until, by praising your own self, I loved praise itself.

  17. فأهنأ بهِ مدحاً سما اترابَهُ

    ما دمتَ قنَّاصاً تصيدُ بُزَاتهُ

    So rejoice in it: praise that rose above its peers,

    So long as you remain a huntsman catching its falcons.

  18. ما كلُّ من يلج العرينَ غضَنفرٌ

    حقٌ لهُ ان يستبيحَ مهاتَهُ

    Not everyone who enters the lair is a lion

    Entitled to take its oryxes as prey.

  19. فالدرُّ يذخرهُ الفتى ضِناً بهِ

    حتى يريهِ الاختبارُ كُفَاتَهُ

    For a youth hoards pearls, jealously guarding them,

    Until testing shows him those worthy of them.

  20. وكذا المديحُ يُصَان في ابراجهِ

    حتى يلاقي المادحونَ سرَاتَهُ

    Likewise, praise is guarded in its towers,

    Until the praisers meet its nobles.

  21. فاذا تجسَّم لي وكنتَ قِوَامَهُ

    أَلبستُهُ حِللاً تغيظُ عداتَهُ

    So when it took bodily form for me, and you were its mainstay,

    I clothed it in robes that vex its enemies,

  22. وجعلتُ شعري في ملائم وجههِ

    قُبَلاً ترصّعُ بالنجوم لهاتَهُ

    And made my verse, upon the features of its face,

    Kisses that stud its uvula with stars.