1. We are the days' spoils and surplus
Events move away from us or settle

2. We accept the injustice of fate, no matter what
We refuse what we dislike in fate, no matter what

3. And if our sandal slips from under us
It’s the days’ doing, not ours the stumbling

4. We say missteps to a nation before us
That the pillar itself is bound to crumble

5. So they desisted from that addiction
Which had become haughty to others and withdrawn

6. After their swords had swarmed
The plains’ hills and the mountains’ crevices

7. And it threw spears recklessly, so say to the one
Whose hands challenge it with flames

8. And it shaded the city’s lord, it did not
Budge until the next day under shade

9. And I see the kings among our wives
Heading to their realm until they wither

10. It dressed other people in their finest garments
Then stripped them, so they were left in rags

11. So it is as if fate did not grant them
The joy of living and subduing regimes

12. Ask Ḥīrah about its tyrants
When each day they live is a term and an end

13. He wears the shadow of the two armories, and if
War sparked, he wears the shadow of weapons

14. And red deaths in his field
Looming between a twinkle and battle

15. And ask the palace about its lords
How strict their packing for travel had become

16. It dismissed them from a vast space
In which the gaze roams until it tires

17. And tamed gardens whose fruits
Were between sprinkled and shaded streams

18. We are the objects of hardships, if they aimed
They missed in the precision of shooting

19. And if their arrows differed
And hit the hero of the people by chance

20. O clan of Fahd, it is fate which
Took from your glory what it did not take

21. Your days shone then darkened
And your shadow stretched then moved

22. Fate broke its strings with you
Of kings who tamed fate, so it tamed

23. Where are your hands when war looms
And where are your hands when drought takes over

24. Your life bid its bliss farewell
And the lords became equal to the slaves in it

25. Had glory found home for its age
It would have dwelled in you and settled

26. And perhaps days will settle for you
So worry returns sparingly

27. For how many recovering from wounds survived
And how many sick we saw heal

28. Will I see your hands spread out
Between two states, generosity and acceptance

29. And plentiful gifts pour
Onto those hopeful of your generosity or begging

30. After I bid it farewell disgusted
Like those with white hair bidding youth farewell

31. Are latter people when
The fates occur any different than the former

32. Their ruins appeared then vanished
And their fortune shone then declined