1. Between me and the nights there is a great ambition,
If the full moon attained it, he would be eclipsed.

2. The mirage of every wilderness is to it a mere dewdrop,
And the horror of every darkness to it is kohl.

3. Whence can I diminish, neither in my arm is shortcoming,
Nor in my words ineptitude.

4. My sin to fate if it shows its obstinacy,
Is the sin of the sword if the hero withdraws.

5. O Seeker of plenitude, I stood seeking it,
Sublimity that ears and minds take pride in.

6. No excellence of living was wasted on me,
The slain man’s dressing suffices him from his shroud’s rent.

7. But I was stingy with refined breaths,
That nourish minds and make embers and flames languid.

8. When I praise, it is about the tribe of Lakhm and its chief,
Distracted from people and what they embroider.

9. And if I describe, like the day I knew you,
When you stormed the Franks, and they knew not your like.

10. And you rushed upon them under a fluttering standard,
The heart of unbelief from it fearful and anxious.

11. Your shining forehead alarmed them and the spreading of the sword,
Terror and confusion were.

12. And when you heard what you heard of words,
The Bedouins and the riffraff were depicted to them.

13. And whenever the wind of guidance blew softly,
Their thirst was quenched, though the swords of India blaze.

14. An army whose horsemen are white as though their origin
Were halo, and their steeds like Qinā, slender.

15. Each of them walks on earth every frolicsome one
As though madness in their saddlebags was bound.

16. The battles scarcely know those who amongst them
Were taken prisoner, so fighting is ignorant.

17. Were it not for your barring the way between their eyes,
Plain and mountain would drown in them.

18. Have they forgotten the looking, the piercing you were known for,
So that every eye facing you afore was perplexed?

19. You roam freely, O people of 'Ibad, and so
Description falls short of what you do and the like.

20. If you take prisoner, there is no despair in your capture,
And if you pardon, there is no fault in your pardon.

21. The lad kisses the prisoner at ease, for he
Is the bearer of good tidings to him that garments will be torn.