1. Early dawn assailed you, O Mu'āwiyah of the Arabs
So guard your clothes, O Abū l-Khaṭṭāb

2. Rabī'ah ibn Mukaddam came to Iraq
And 'Utbah ibn al-Ḥārith ibn Shihāb

3. Is there any doubt that they are the ones
In cunning, not in lineage and origin

4. They brought poetry from its homelands to you
Like traders bringing wares in camel bags

5. The masterpieces of poets in what they prepared
Are paired with wonders of books

6. Damn a people whose dreams never cease
And minds lost in error and confusion

7. For them are the sharp swords and spearheads
And from ostriches the choice feathers

8. They launched upon literature the ugliest raid
That wounded the hearts of its beauty

9. So beware of the moves of uncouth boors
And beware the moves of roaming wolves

10. They do not rob a brother of wealth
But usurp the fruits of minds

11. If the pillar of speech turned against them
Then I am the one who halted speech at my door

12. Or they descend into humiliation, then I am the one
Whose glorious curtains were drawn shut

13. How long they tried to attain my heights
Yet could only grasp specks of my dust

14. Helpless, though when war horses raced
The slaves did not stop at masters' positions

15. I defended poetry, though it belonged to a band
Of riffraff, nothing beyond names and titles

16. And I struck the pretenders, though my blows
Were for literature's form, that was my aim

17. So Nabīṭ of the Khālidiyya claimed
My poetry and pranced in my robes

18. Elders whose age is saffron, you see them
Around the cross, pillars of crucifixion

19. They descended upon Dharmat lowly, with sullen gazes
Who never smelled but the yoke's disgrace

20. And deemed the pure bodies' essence impure
In the best of revealed scriptures and books

21. Every blond searcher, his snout sniffing
For his livelihood, you find him scribe

22. Squint-eyed, their voices hushed
As their heads don monk's cowls

23. Their income protects the sides of their domain
So fangs spend the night deprived of it

24. Once cared for by the master of Khālidiyya
Nay, he herded them through the eras

25. O Sa'īd! Had you but seen Hāshim
In life, stripped of venerated comrades

26. The essence of humiliation, riding his little donkey
Feeble in living, pale in cloak

27. You would swear to never lengthen a turban
Polished of bands, adorned with cords

28. They spent their musical instruments and fancied
Time had flowed and ebbed against me

29. A people, if seeking kings for some wish
Their turbans spill at the doors

30. Every old man with dripping saliva
Two colors between the doorman's fingers

31. Glowering at the disgrace of the veil barring him
My scowling face makes the guard glower

32. And foolish one, who provoked my wrath
So my chest met his chest in response

33. They looked upon my poetry, desiring
To suck its cheeks like virgin brides

34. They drank it and confessed its sweetness
Though many a sweet drink came with punishment

35. In a raid where lances did not pierce coats of mail
And spears did not redden with blood

36. It left my speech's wonders forlorn
Captives who cannot find their way back

37. Wounded, though struck by no flaying blade
Captured, though borne on no carrying poles

38. A diction whose texts I polished until it was
In prosody's horizons a pearl of purest water

39. As if I channeled in its pages
The nectar of jujubes and essence of currants

40. I made its clauses wander in charm
And strangeness, then understanding

41. And spent my youth without distraction
From its beauty by pleasure or band

42. So when its water ripples across the page
The breeze exudes the scent of my youth

43. The wise lean in, swearing at heart
Amazement and admiration split between them

44. Seriousness that sparks fly, and humor
That begs friends for friends

45. I find comfort in seeing its pieces
Bloodied in the foe's victory and maw

46. Was it flung disgraced in a doomed raid
Where Rome's deer were sold to nomads?

47. O brother, you comforted me with its quality
So comfort those of worthy lineage

48. Comfort the generous whose hands overflowing
Are their pedigree, no need for lineages

49. They competed in its jewelry and embellishment
And were rewarded beyond what they hoped

50. They watered it, death's cups overflowing
And saw sins watered by their hands

51. I warn whoever declaims a lying poem
Vaunting a raid or plunder

52. Two wolves, when sighting a caravan
One day unleashed against it like raging camels

53. Two priests, when bells pealed from their belfries
Yearning, or cooing like moaning camels

54. Passionate for the one of offerings, truly believing
He's of a lineage tracing back to their kin

55. Content with the Bible, feigning in them
Anger at the Criterion and dissenters

56. I discard both equally to you
So prepare for the terrible appointed time

57. My satire's catapults are erected, and if they see
For you both a towering position and rank

58. And if I renege on my covenant with a man
Let him ready for my power and punishment

59. You attempted a mountain whose peaks
Loom over the darkest clouds like dark clouds

60. So if its arrows' wrath befell you both
The days stretched out dusty beyond anger

61. You attempted a mountain whose peaks
Loom over the clouds, the dark clouds

62. You charged in foolishness, but recoiled
From fate's evil, upon your heels

63. You flung exquisite musk with slander
While its scent nurtures the slandered

64. So let my censure's poisoned vapors choke you
And my torrents of poetry drown you both

65. Sweeping with the south winds toward you
Steeped in honey or tree saps

66. Emerging from the darkness as if they were
Stallions pursuing their mares

67. I will strike you for what you betrayed
With unrelenting poetry swords, not mine

68. Recurring, never missing you, for does
Dawn's guide leave night in the dark?

69. The red hills quake, so if they head
Right, they tread the flood's abyss

70. Arrows I embed in you, engraved
With hatred's haunts and disturbances

71. I show you the world through them dust-covered
Till today seems a day of gloom

72. Know if my wrongs' winds do not
Blow upon you, ever my grudge and punishment flee

73. And let the liar beware your morass, a hand
Yearning to coat his tongue's tip in lies

74. How many a foe whose torment I prolonged
With conversation's caustic bitterness?

75. I clad it in mail before the coats of mail
Like the snake's back dressed in scales

76. Were it not for Abū l-Khaṭṭāb, my loss
In speeches would oppress me, spoiling my discourse

77. But his sublime traits pardoned me
As his right hand cleared my stains of time

78. It is enough that fate reprimanded me through him
So to him I stayed my reproach and blame