1. Generous ancestors have handed down to you their noble ways,
And you lived in times when you gave refuge.

2. The white oryx have now become females who shun fighting,
Having been males in the days they locked horns.

3. Our affairs now go counter to what is right,
And time in the world swerves from justice and tyrannizes.

4. Can I despair on a day that contradicts its yesterday,
When the flowers of the pear tree revolve around the mansions of the stars?

5. Oftentimes the masters rise again after their decline
And planets emerge again after their setting.

6. If you are confined in a house you built,
The giant may yet be belittled, though he is massive.

7. The captives thought it shameful to say:
"Muhammad is a stranger in the land of the two Maghrebs, a captive."

8. They vie in breaking his shackles,
While stalwart heroes are broken by them.

9. I was jailed by the oryx in their prisons,
With walls against which prisons are but tombs.

10. Until today the wounds of the night have not frightened
A morning changer who comes at dawn to change them.

11. No caller of generous deeds has pitied the rich
And made them turn the spindles of the two camps poor.

12. Indeed you defended God's religion best,
As if you were a heart and it your innermost counsel.

13. And when you left with the dew in your palms,
And the happy gurgle of full waterskins,

14. I lifted my tongue at the resurrection which had come:
"Behold these mountains marching on; look there!"