1. Shall I submit to the days, or shall I not submit?
Shall I bear the injustice of time, or shall I protest?

2. I wept over poetry that was stricken, as Malik wept
When his property was stricken, completing his elegy

3. I was consoled for not attaining wealth through its merit
For no destitute man was made wealthy through merit

4. I distance my pleasure and gains from it
And forsake sleep for it while people slumber

5. When meanings flash their lightning bolts at me
And the delicate wording of prose aids them

6. I saw the glow in the cheek of a lovely gazelle
Her dimples smiling beneath it

7. An enchanting order of halal magic
That makes its listener believe the stars are strung together

8. When it grew fierce as a sword, a polisher honed it
And straightened it like a spear made straight

9. Souls seek refuge in its breeze as though it were
A soft wind in the hands of the morning breeze

10. A people my equal adorned themselves with it but denied it
Does the shooting star give birth to dark features?

11. Against it was launched by the insane a raid
So it became among them divided spoils

12. It was the greatest raid whose swords
Made violating the sanctity of literature lawful though forbidden

13. I see injustice has spread among all people
So there is no justice but when wolves judge

14. Will an eloquent one protect the ornament of rhetoric
While the vulgar boast in the delicacy of eloquence?

15. It is criticism robbed by the raid of chaos
But in the raid of poetry it is impregnable

16. Steel misses the fang and claw if it extends
So how could it be harmed if it goes clipped?

17. Leave the blooming stars that confounded you
As long as poetry has stars at its rising

18. Do not preserve the Preserver of preservers for His traits
Have dissolved for you and He is intractable

19. His tongue oozes poisoned honey for you
And no honey was ever so poisoned before it

20. I deflected the arrows of blame from you though pierced
And some rhymed verse is an arrow feathered

21. I saw you dead so I checked my sobbing
Does one who sees the dead speak when they mumble?

22. If you ask me for a drop of virtues
My pool is filled with the water of virtues