1. We ride the stars in darkness
Though we do not mount a saddle or step

2. Nor feel eyelids that feel
A wakeful stranger who slept without sleep

3. The sun blackens the white of our faces
But does not blacken the white of excuse and blame

4. Their state was the same in judgment
If we had appealed from the world to an arbiter

5. And we leave water that does not cease from travel
What traveled in cloud traveled in blood

6. I do not hate the staff but I avoided through it
My heart from sorrow or my body from sickness

7. I chased their hands in Egypt with their feet
Until we slipped away from turbulent Gosh and standards

8. The ostriches of Al-Daw parade for them
Rivaling the swaying braids with ostrich eggs

9. In a raid they risked their souls and were content
With what the left hands met of wounds

10. Whenever they cast their turbans
Turbans seemed created black without stripes

11. The white brows jabbing those they caught up with
Of the horsemen paralyzing for the ostriches

12. They reached with their spears beyond capacity
And what courage lies in them does not reach limits

13. Except that their souls in the sacred months
Are of their perfume which permeates them

14. They brandished spears though they did not speak
So they taught them the birds’ screams in the haze

15. Our mounts take us white whose hooves
Are green, their horseshoes in fetters and blinkers

16. Goaded by the whips of the tribe we drive them
From the place of grass we desire the place of vines

17. And where is its place after its place
Of my father Shuja the plague of Arabs and non-Arabs

18. No protector remains in Egypt whom we visit
Nor successor amongst all people

19. He whom the living do not resemble in nature
The dead resemble him in decay

20. I lost him as if I traveled seeking him
The world does not increase me save nonexistence

21. I still laugh whenever my camels look
At him whose stirrups their hooves bled for

22. I walk them between idols I see
Yet I do not see in them the honor of an idol

23. Until I returned and my pens blame me
Glory is for the sword not glory for the pen

24. Record us forever after writing with it
For we are but servants to the swords

25. You heard me and my medicine I indicated
If I am absent my cure is little wisdom

26. Whoever seeks his need save the Indian
Answers every question about "if only" with "if"

27. The people supposed poverty brought us closer
And in growing closer lies what invites suspicion

28. Scant fairness always severs
Between men even if they are kindred

29. So no visit unless you visit them
With hands calloused waving bright scabbards

30. From every arbiter with death its blade
Between an avenger from him and an avenger

31. It protected its sheaths from them so they did not fall
In the places of cowardice in hands or bosses

32. Make easy on sight what offends it
Wakefulness of the eye is like dreams

33. Do not complain to people so they gloat over you
Complaint of the wounded to ravens and ostriches

34. And beware of people, hiding it
And do not be fooled by their smiling mouths

35. Loyalty is scarce so you will not find it in a group
Truthfulness in telling and oaths is lacking

36. Glory to the Creator of my soul, how it delighted
In what souls see as the epitome of pain

37. Fate is astonished I carry its misfortunes
And my body's endurance of its crushing blows

38. Time is wasted and a life — would that its length
Were in other than my nation from former peoples

39. Time brought its sons in their youth
So it delighted them, and we came to it in old age