1. With the suns setting their wings aflutter
Garbed in silk, their dresses a-flutter,

2. Ravishing hearts and minds entire,
Their bewitching gardens plundering plunderers.

3. Delicate, murderous charmers
Displaying coquetries strange and wonderful;

4. They try my ransom but espy a guard
So place their hands upon their hips indignant.

5. They smile through an icy front fearing
I'll melt it with my fiery breath.

6. I yearn for the tolerant; I yearn
For a valley where I can kiss a fawn indifferent.

7. How can I hope to escape from distress
Now that it has sunk its claws in me?

8. It has isolated me and found but sadness one,
Unending, made it my comrade.

9. It set me up as a target for archers;
Misfortunes sharper than swords assault me.

10. Life has denied me water so when
I asked it rained calamities upon me.

11. Of saddlebags' thongs they fashioned me shoes black
And made me amble as though I rode a mount.

12. When did fortune's vicissitudes make Ibn Mansur aware?
Repenting, time has come to me on bended knee.

13. A king whose aggression and hostility vie,
Spilling blood competed in noblesse oblige.

14. He belittles the mighty danger to receive his guests
Deeming the Tigris insufficient for all to imbibe!

15. Were you to tell him of his own magnanimity, thinking you a liar,
Ask of his courage, beware his minister-

16. Beware and beware again- make your address mild
For death's nature and disposition are thus defined:

17. None born has met it and lived to describe it as
Gentle or meek or soft or mild.

18. Whether you meet it attacking, defending, yearning, desiring,
Asceticing, dying, mourning or weeping!

19. Gaze at mountains and you will espy them
Louring over plains like mares impetuous.

20. Gaze at plains and you will espy them below mountains
Stallions fretting restively in vales.

21. A crow that has shed from its steel essence
To smile the black of cast iron ancient or freshly wrought.

22. So day seems mantled in its gloomy dark
And lances twinkle like stars eminent.

23. With it disasters have camped in regiment
And men marshalled to fight in squadrons close.

24. A lion leading lions, for him lions scramble prey
While in rank impeding sight or ken.

25. High they raised him above access by any
And titled him my personal chamberlain!

26. For utmost munificence named him 'spendthrift'
And for wresting souls named him 'usurper'!

27. He who exhausted the brilliant their plenty
And fatally challenged time to try its worst.

28. Frustrator of hopes however cherished
Who rarely suffers a palm returned empty!

29. He whom present I saw just as absent I saw
Like the moon- regard it straight and it hits your eye a beam oblique.

30. Like the sea casting its pearly essence to nears
While sending those afar clouds big with rain!

31. Like the sun blazing in the sphere's heart high, its brilliance
Illumines realms in east and west aligned!

32. Sires of nobles it denigrates, the profligate it censures
As it reproaches every generous lord.

33. They vie in glory, your glory they blame
And faults in you imaginary they acclaim!

34. "Here am I!" to haters' rancour I respond
"We shall tell of wonders we see by your side!"

35. Shrewd forethought for a novel tomorrow
Fearless attack regardless of consequence.

36. Largesse of wealth - if seekers vied to exhaust it
You would spend it ere they could gain audience!

37. Take from these, my praises, what I can manage-
Do not oblige me to praises obligated.

38. I was stunned by your feats and excepting them
What would leave the guardian angel shocked and recording!