1. I jest in my grey old age, bereft of insight and reason!
What beauties glance my way, when my head's but dusty stubble?

2. I excuse my frail soul with warnings, tired of the commonplace.
By my life, how I misled it with youth's foibles long ago!

3. I sought perfection in the love my faith demanded;
but when I gained it, perfection itself eluded me.

4. No fair woman delights me now, nor intimacy with a witty friend.
My fear of gossip drove me to make my way clearly among men.

5. Not that I burden people with my sins, but fame for virtue I lack.
Woe to the Banu Nabhan for any disgrace! Never have I found

6. slip of sandal in their abode. None of their dead we miss,
save one lord, a babe in nature though mature in years,

7. suckled on the noble traits of brave men, so even the new born
displays the temper of the elders.

8. Do we not mourn sincerely for the Yarbu' we have lost,
the pearl taken from Abu Hasan's brood? By my life, fate

9. has matched its disaster with the keening of a noble father
for his noble son. Weep, my liver, bleed, my eyes,

10. for the death of Ibn Duhl, with no peer among the Bani Saida!
Fairer he was to hearts than sleep itself, lovelier to the eye

11. than kohl, till he lives on in spirits as though each soul
were imprinted on his sword's blade. The shining planet sank

12. from the horizon, leaving the world in darkness.
Crescent moon of cloudy night, his death refused

13. to wax full or set.
Ziyad and Khaulah's lineage contained hosts of glorious deeds.

14. O father of Arabs, ripped from your warrior youth by blind fortune
when you had gathered your kin! You have entered a house

15. from which no longing visitor can reach you.
Yet he who stands atop your grave, weeping, feels no less anguish

16. than you in your dark hollow! A father who thought his wealth
and family as nothing, when it came to ransoming you.

17. He saw in you what pleased him most, the finest sight
for a genealogist's eye.

18. O Nights of bitter life, rare visitors to him, postmen of doom massed behind!
Your phantom is present, your memory fresh. No footprint fades, no substitute

19. can comfort us. God grant you peace and mercy, and send clouds pouring down
upon clouds to soak your tomb! We bow to the judgment of the True Arbiter,

20. for nights have neither sense nor folly in their decree. We draw patience itself
to endure whatever may come or go.

21. The Banu Nabhan, from what has struck them, are like lions whose den time has robbed.
Had my enemy felt but lightly the claws and teeth

22. that drove into barren ground, Those are a people whose glory God has embroidered
with righteous word and deed. Madness has not ravaged their dreams

23. nor greed their wealth. Boughs of Ghatrif, scions of Amr ibn Amir
with fragrant bloom and root. They are the Azd's mountain, mankind's refuge

24. in its season of ripening.
When they don the worn mantle and stand up girt, unequaled champions,

25. they give drink to the thirsty and feed the famished,
they ease hardships and level the smooth plain.

26. O Banu Nabhan, preserved and then made secure
from the caprices of fate in meadows thick with bloom!

27. This sincere praise is from one whose poetry's gems are proof
of his nobility in word and judgment.

28. But for my sense of shame, I would rightly claim
to see no poet who can equal me!

29. The envious will sing my praises once their hearts
are purged of hatred for me and my superiority is made plain.