1. Who will convey Najd's greetings, and who to Najd
Will bring peace to the dead of patience, alive with passion?

2. He weeps when the evening glows with fever's shimmer,
Yet weeping avails little, and benefits less.

3. He presses a pounding heart to the ground,
Thirsty, long estranged from the valley blooms.

4. Yearning unfurls it, then folds it away
As passion returns it, and lays it bare.

5. If searched for its coolness when melted by yearning,
Naught would be found but the chill of the graves.

6. The claws of sorrow wound it,
Not its flesh or skin, but its heart.

7. I would ransom a loved one consumed by fever
While my heart and agony of love lie with me.

8. My vitals nearly cast forth their contents
At my burning for the lone, erect peak.

9. How strange for a free man, after such pride,
To be led by passion, driven like a slave!

10. Leave me to Numan's meadows, let me weep there,
For long I have chased the birds of Sa'di from them.

11. My branch once fruited, my tresses darkened,
While the white herons fed in my valley's peace.

12. My wine was on my lips, my narcissus in my eyes,
My roses on my cheeks, my myrtle at my waist.

13. When my youth remained unspilled, I and my love
Knew no difference between his cheek and mine.

14. Now part of my days offers security
To those who decry all I have squandered and lost.

15. If the hands of the evident King do not save me,
Best of all helpers, grantors of gifts,

16. See, now I look to the days of my fate
For their justice and grace to assist me.

17. A king who protects his people from fate's caprice
And whom no lion's might can overmaster;

18. One day when you see the lances in rows
And the horses charging and the warriors lunging,

19. When the brandishing there is like clouds
And its lightning is the clash of arms,

20. There he will wrap his sword in his cloak,
Cleansed of the blood of foes in its sheath,

21. Bow in the dust so those who never recited
The 'Mother of the Book' prostrate before him.

22. Who there is like Antar and like Aamir
In valor, like the son of Ma'adi?

23. His awe of demeanor almost frees him
When horrors strike from seeking troops.

24. The kings are as a necklace, and he
At the nape, joining together its strands.

25. The cheeks of every tyrant supplicate him,
And he fells the frivolous with utmost gravity.

26. His deeds have earned him, in all the world,
The loftiest praise and most splendid acclaim.

27. The kings fall short of his lofty qualities,
Of the apex of his glory and might.

28. It is as if his traits of justice, goodness,
And superiority are the Mahdi's traits.

29. O King, who trembles at praise
Like the quaking of a sharpened sword,

30. Take this eulogy, and pay no heed
To the dangerous utterances of slanderers!

31. They spurned Labid like an idiot, and a slave
In rags recoiled from their evil gifts.

32. No Kindeh envies the merit of such a gift;
I mean Imru' al-Qais ibn Hujr al-Kindeh.

33. I gave you a maiden, peerless,
And she is pleased with the visit.

34. An august gift for a most capable king
Who attained the heights with her dower and price.

35. May the Evident King remain evidently
Victorious over enemies, sublimely glorious!

36. No morning breeze blew gently there,
No ringdoves crooned to stir the pine trees.