1. Is patience truly glorious when I don the armor of patience,
And is there a supporter for poetry who will support it widely?

2. My poetry has been distorted, O Ibn Fahd, by a wrongdoer
So I have been destroyed by it, yet it has enriched him,

3. And every day the foolish ones raid
My veiled, delicate words, frightening them,

4. If a meaning smiles at me, its wording laughs
As the traitor laughed in his treacherous garden,

5. Strange like a line of lightning when
Its images smiled at the mind, so I made it a line,

6. So a cheek of youths he wipes his cheek
And a chest of people he settles his chest,

7. A destroyer, ignorant, took it,
Forgiven for his lack of wisdom when he cast off propriety,

8. So he made remote what I brought near in ignorance
And he made difficult what I made easy of its expression and meter,

9. So wait, Abu Othman, wait, for indeed,
It is only those who love poetry who envy the poems,

10. I would have extinguished all those stars entirely,
And I would have defiled those glances and visits,

11. Woe unto you! Why not be content with half
And leave me some of its beauties half?

12. If my palm misses Sa'eed bin Hashim,
Then it has attained from my poetry his being cut off.