1. Do you recognize it from the outline of a house with wings
When the torrents of calamities batter it as though

2. Sparks of embers were crawling over its threshing floors,
Competing firebrands advancing recklessly?

3. Did Umm ‘Âsim try to console a weeping woman
With what she told me, or did she want to suppress my grief?

4. The clan of ‘Âmir are alive; never have I seen the like of them:
Most generous to the noble and valiant when called upon.

5. It is as though you never witnessed the charges of our horses
When religion was chaos before it was systematized.

6. And their raid led by Al-Kindi between the remnants
Of the routed enemy, between spineless cowards and lions.

7. Baring his chest, heedless of the unseen horrors to come,
When the valiant strip themselves naked for the fight.

8. We killed the enemy one night when the crescent rose
And said, “Take precautions and wait till the morn.”

9. With the clan of ‘Amr we waylaid their assembled hordes—
The clan of Asad—both to nourish and equip ourselves.

10. We passed the night restoring our sovereignty among them
And we commenced until dawn turned the air jet black,

11. As though a raincloud hovered over them, and a section of it
Streamed with a hailstorm when part of it scattered.

12. We killed them, and we feasted, so every tribe
Still comes cringing to us, though once supreme in pride.

13. Thus in our ranks we count a chamberlain whose right hand
Wields a silver brace binding a sturdy wrist.

14. And we own a land whose ruins at As-Su‘ūn are parcelled out
And valleys laid waste, though once the echoing preserve of wild beasts.

15. You cannot assay a man but through his boon companions,
Or till both of you live and acquit yourselves with honour.

16. Yet the weakling may stir up mischief such as you never see
When considerations of fairness and equity sleep.

17. To pardon some men and blame others for ignorance
When the mule fails to fill the sack however plied!

18. My two friends, do not be so quick: wait until the morrow;
Holding back awhile as to this affair may prove the wiser course—

19. Lest you incur a debt the like of which you must repay
If dire adversity demands this wealth of yours.

20. Let fate do as it wills, for if charged to corrupt mankind,
It has corrupted them—and ever faster.