1. We make peace with this life though it wages war against us,
And we complain though complaining is the nature of days.

2. We seek to make peace with misfortunes, yet our own souls
Have never ceased from making complaints.

3. Its steeds and swords threaten us,
Yet neither can prevail nor these withdraw.

4. We thought lofty homes and spear straight
Were like fortresses when shaken by war.

5. But when fate passed its decree their chanting was little;
Neither their zebras nor their onagers crossed the limit.

6. This life has been clad in the mail of that which we attempt against it
While it is naked to that which we fear and avoid.

7. The course of what one hopes for is the course of a led beast,
And the course of what one fears its onslaughts is a wolf's leap.

8. When misfortunes surprise us with death and destruction,
We have no equal but the noble side of death.

9. So help the prince Taghlib and his folk
Whom the overpowering fate has abandoned!

10. With a mistress whose works the lands universally witness
So that non-Arabs and Arabs tell of her favor,

11. The most noble of women in deeds, one whose like
Whether the women of East or West be counted, exists not.

12. Men's hearts were alike in sadness when she died
As though the hearts of men at her death were one heart.

13. The flat lands of earth as well as its rough parts
Were confounded when the former received her.

14. If those whom the earth covers have a tomb,
Then Mary's is apart from other women's.

15. Happy the water of Muzn! Would that her belly
Were for its draft when it flows full without check!

16. I swear were a handful of earth added to musk
The musk for it would be the sweeter of the two.

17. Her virtues make praise penetration as though
The praises of the virtuous were because of their fairness, booty.

18. She dwelt among a people of Jonah's folk a group
Who loved with a soul untouched by sorrow.

19. So those resting places were cooled by them.
And that light rose in them, nor does it set.

20. By God whatever earth covers of her chastity,
And whatever veils concealed of her purity!

21. Though Wadi l-Hisn be wide, yet its meadow sufficed
For the noted man of plenty, the obtainer of breadth.

22. And if its running water is fresh or its flowery places blossom,
Still bounty has always filled its hollows and inch by inch its herbage.

23. I am amazed that one like her should be confined in it
With no arrogance or pride, neither in him nor in it.

24. Had its meadows known whom they confined
They would have aspired, and its paths boasted.

25. Guarded women are degraded before her
And bare legs and feet walk around her.

26. Never does the meadow's moisture cease from the dripping dew,
As though the dripping upon it were implanted pearls.

27. O Taghlib, show patience, and you have always been patient,
When a firm knot or plaited tress comes loose.

28. For from you has issued lions of valor,
And how many promisers among men have no tomorrow!

29. You are the lofty palm trees of bounty,
Nor have their bases quaked however great the disaster.

30. Every live rain cloud has you for its pourers,
And every mill of war has you for its pivot.

31. Had it been other than the pigeons you poured down on them
A cloud whose drippings were piercing and striking.

32. I see your land has become a heaven through your glory.
So you are its suns, its moons, and its shooting stars.

33. Your enemies die before your swords flash.
And fear of you destroys them before your war.

34. How should war afflict you when it is by your command
That fates advance and striking goes forward?

35. When you register the foe as booty,
Your horses are likened to them, so the registering fails.

36. The Taghlibi prince summoned us to the dew,
And we are the drinking of it while he is the drink.

37. We share days whose virginity is enmity to him
While the company of the days of youth is joy.

38. He is a rain whose attainment has reached the lofty horizon
Until remoteness and nearness were equally balanced for him.

39. He visits the dew's visitors repeatedly
While they enjoy life, but his visitors never fail.

40. Let his enemies refrain, for your share,
If you aim for his goal, is fatigue.

41. No blame lies on a sea that went heavily laden
If the wishers of its shores drew no sweet water.

42. Can the sweetness of water equal its brine?
Can fertility in earth rival barrenness?

43. If people are impotent or their flaws appear,
No blame lies with him whose merit shows.

44. I saw you as unripe for poetry, and none
Could compose it but one skilled, one ripe.

45. I needs must complain to you of darkness
And a raid of raiders whose nature is wrath,

46. Who fancies my poetry a people of Salih
Promised destruction with the Eternal overthrowing it.

47. It pastured amid meadows belonging to it
Where neither the tithe collector nor nobles pastured.

48. It was blossoming orchards that grew turbid.
Their watering places turned yellow, and the grass in its soil faded.

49. Their fine clothes were driven to the fowler's snares,
And their jewels were stripped off by the cheating cheats.

50. I am robbed of its silver cloth and necklaces.
Its cloth is a swindle, and its pearls are plunder.

51. Its untouched virginity is widely spent,
And its secluded places of refuge were startled like antelopes.

52. Baring you of loincloth and cloak,
Things unworthy of being stripped by force.

53. If my antelope flock rebels or evades its duty
And warding it off avails me naught,

54. I have here a humiliation of the foe that degrades him
When his traits of character become diverse.

55. So that whenever I uttered poetry,
The pencils of the mounted warriors creaked, or the camels sang.