1. You hope that poetry will make you wealthy,
Yet life is but to live hopefully.

2. Oh how many a care may break the heart with its weight,
I have composed for it a couplet until it dissolves.

3. And a frowning king whose discourse cannot be desired,
I rose over him with a rising so he smiled.

4. And a saying with the seeds of hearts I confined it,
Though it circled the horizons of countries and wandered.

5. Twenty I spent my youth as it passed,
As if I spent with it a delayed year.

6. If what has passed of it will not return,
Then woe to him who urges on the riding-camels to delay!

7. Leave the ignorant in blaming the truthful, for I
Saw the beauty of a man is to adorn himself.

8. If I did not give youth its judgement,
Still my heart was for youth a dwelling.

9. I saw the nights not convey an end,
Nor return a thing unless forgetting.

10. And this time showed me its people,
So I do not glance at the days among them studying.

11. Song is little praised if you, a dreamer,
Do not make your heart thereby a balance.

12. O people of glory, think well of the time, for it
Severs from its causes what is connected.

13. And return the faces of the questioners with their water,
So to you the faces of gratitude will return chained.

14. Generous in calculation and miserly in wealth,
So how do I blame fate for being neglectful?

15. I swore no ode will separate from me,
That loosens the pleiades upon the night sparkling.

16. To a king from Taghlib, daughter of Wael,
Who sees the collected honey of wealth buzzing.

17. Alluring to his hands, born of the dew,
And turning away harm if competing with fate.

18. Your ransom is the sword of the king, every kingdom,
When it is said “many are your enviers,” belittle them.

19. Asking him in generosity the least
And in stinginess until stinginess attributes to itself blindness.

20. For when the time grew more difficult
For people, you grew in it more easy.

21. O people of war, fill it with impregnable shields,
And mail, and heroes, and sharp swords, and bleached bones.

22. And fine patience for when the spears become
Seeking among the vitals a lodging.

23. Take death, let not death take you suddenly,
Beware the falling of the iron clanging.

24. And do not scorn your enemies in battalions
That march the tent-pegs marching hurriedly.

25. For what is the sword if not for its attainment and its striking,
And what is the lion if not for its seeking to kill?

26. And do not accept from the land of Greece a truce,
For the settlement of religion will not waver.

27. Beware, the resolution of men is enmity,
If hatreds refuse to dissipate.

28. So how much darkness you have brought victory in its like
To them from the atmosphere and the ascending evil portents.

29. And a day over them not its newborn is called out,
You rode therein victory, unveiled and sparkling.

30. And blame that the vicious one thought
He makes you see therein death frowning.

31. So he was like one who presents to the fire its fuel,
And you were like one who contents the suns and overpowered.

32. You left them exposed to killing and fear,
So they sleep only fitfully.

33. The firm binder ferocious from them wishes,
From fear, if only he were the shackled corpse.

34. If one of them dies bloodied in the sands,
You make one tear-soaked over him die.

35. They block the mouths of ravines against them,
And which smooth plains of yours prevent a pickaxe?

36. You travelled from the shore of the gulf with an army
And left therein from your caution an army.

37. Would that graves in the city may have been given tidings
Of a day you left disbelief therein shackled.

38. And a people in whom betrayal encamped,
You travelled against them a night of evil.

39. And the strike of a sword whose wound you made gape,
As if with it in the surface of water a bucket.

40. And a bow that rivals the winds in its curved shape,
You shot with it from the bow of your care firmly.

41. Passing as if lightning split its dust,
And it left in the smooth rock a cleavage.

42. You preceded to the goals of every merit,
And left whoever hopes to meet you dissolved.

43. When the horses panic with the horsemen and stand still
Upon your name until forbearance withers.

44. Creation brings the heat near to you honourably
And prevents it with glory to gain wealth.

45. I see the poets of the people concerning me in three:
A jealous one, a praiser, and an ignorant fault-finder.

46. I took the poem by the hem against them,
So they do not make good speech except dissolving.

47. Who will aid me today with the sword of the state
And prevent this speech to circulate?

48. So I have sent out many stumbling lines of poetry
And found leaning thereon no one except it as hoped.

49. Help me against this time and its people,
Though I was therein resolute in opinion transformed.

50. And grant to me a great deed from your merits that
Create for me thereby in the sands of poetry a camel uncut-eared.

51. For each day brings something new silently,
And not every day brings something said.