1. O you who rebukes the poet of the rabble
Exposing your ignorance to be branded as vitriolic

2. Or addressing the foremost of vitriol with blame
I do not see you as his peer

3. In vilification the elevation of every fallen one
And the loss is in the foolishness of fools

4. If you want to match me then seek
A lineage and I will answer you are not my peer

5. O you who specifically reproaches me
While lions have recoiled in fear of encountering me

6. Oh, if only I knew what emboldened you against me
Did you feel safe from my power and twisting ways?

7. The stallions of my words, beware if you return
The stallions of every verdant battalion

8. That my claws miss their mark in a land
I'm content with, its expanse being my heavens

9. I have a sword that none protected by its sheath
Has escaped while it is in its sheath

10. If you were reasonable you would not obey every
Slanderous whisperer walking about

11. You disturbed the sincerity of affection from me after
I purified it for you, my loyalty being my faithfulness

12. And you saw my anger in a piercing saying
I was more deserving for you to see my pleasure

13. And you wanted to deny my merits so you testified for me
Since your dispraise bore witness for the virtuous

14. Did a jinn possess you or was it her light
That covered its suns with a cloak?

15. And you claimed that in poetry you contend with me
Can darkness be compared to brilliance?

16. Poetry is a disgrace not a pride
You have become, O Yahya, one of the poets

17. If I wanted its rhymes I would have owned them
But they would only be under the shade of my banner

18. However, I am content with subsistence so I do not
Appear begging rulers and ministers

19. Wealth is not riches the youth accumulates
The best wealth to me is the richness of resolve

20. If you were deprived of wealth, I have
A self whose contentment is the greatest wealth

21. All I have is my literature, my wealth, and a belt
That casts misfortunes with streams of comets

22. So be silent and I will not show anyone need
While fire springs from the fervor of determination

23. I disdain wealth that draws humiliation
And I love poverty that brings nobility

24. And I see pursuits that if I wished to take them
But the soul of the free is one with thirst

25. Wondrous! O Yahya, that my pride would be
As if the sun competed with the morning glow

26. Nothing emboldened this poor soul except that
He brought forth two deserted poems

27. Could there be the likes of you preceding me in knowledge
While my writings have won the wager of the lofty

28. If an era left me behind I came to it
With contemplation, the last of mankind

29. Or you did not know what I say, so you are pardoned
For not seeing with a blind eye

30. O you who aspires to the position of an insignificant one
Alas! For you among the stars of Gemini

31. Bashfulness is a praised trait
But your face is not one of bashfulness

32. By God! If I had not seen it
I would have reckoned it to be from deaf rock

33. O you coarse of nature! For whatever
Reason did you cut the rope, the rope of my brotherhood

34. And blamed me without a sin I came to
So you revealed the changing of the water of my purity

35. Because I said you were mistaken
In what you brought of the disavowed

36. You compared the one whose praise I lauded, his marriage
To a dove sent to one who discloses secrets

37. Then you took cover, thinking your words like it
With a comparison, his praise to intelligence

38. Does the sun of day become feminine in reality
By nature? Speak if you possess any wit

39. With knowledge, not insults, rebut my saying
For insults are the acts of the weak and subservient

40. What supports a man in his words
Is not insult but the white argument

41. If it were not for decency holding me back
From insulting one who is not my peer

42. I would send from my speech to you scorpions
That wound to exhaustion the slender

43. And cut your lineage with a saying that pleases sacrifice
Obliterating it by soul and fathers

44. But the Quran to you is my contention
And a merit witnessed by my enemies

45. Take it, for it makes one forget the censure
O you who rebukes, O son of the villainous smearer!