1. You will find tears flowing in its slopes,
We spurred our mounts through it, so it stirred up our fervor,

2. Blood-red, the flocks scattered in fright from our onslaught,
An abode I knew in my youth as a sanctuary,

3. I savored joy in its gardens,
I would graze on the meadows of companionship in its air,

4. And play with gazelles in its thickets,
And when the tender branches swayed gently in the sun,

5. I would pluck pomegranates from its branches,
Fate destroyed them wrongfully while time supported it,

6. They were estranged by the warbling of the separation crows,
So the face of parting appeared to them, cracked,

7. Bringing the news of the bier through its information,
They shed tears like pearls on the day of parting

8. From a gathering where grief toyed with its pearls
I bade them farewell, while the sparks of a goblet

9. Kindled fires beneath my ribs through its flames,
And I let flow the melting of my eyelids as if

10. They were the hands of Bani Mansur in its outpouring
O my two companions, if your camel drivers travel on,

11. Split open by the breaths from its walls,
And head for the wide plain, perhaps

12. Youth will intercede so I become one of its branches,
I recalled living there and what had passed

13. Of my youth, and folded away its times,
So I wept for a time whose stages I had crossed

14. And a youth I had culled from its prime,
I would graze on a verdant beloved from the face of the sky,

15. When the full moon emerged from its cover,
As if the sprinkling of stars amidst it

16. Were sheep being herded by the Great Bear as their shepherd,
As if the Pleiades therein were gems

17. Scattered by a hand across its expanse,
As if Aldebaran were a noble lady of a tribe

18. Who descended upon the top of Al-Nasr from its children,
As if the Milky Way were a path

19. To al-‘Amariyya illuminated from its lanterns
Those who rush forth with their spears

20. And place ambition upon their crowns,
I captured with horses until they imagined

21. That the mountains had cast them with its missiles,
And the enemy assailed with regiments filling the horizon,

22. Sheathing the blade of dawn in its quivers,
On each swift steed flying with four legs

23. Whose rear makes you forget the front’s whiteness,
They were raised in the flowers and water of kings,

24. As if they were raised on its branches,
The noble Arabs showed them its swordsmanship,

25. So they learned from its striking and stabbing,
I am its firmly rooted pillar, so if

26. The hands of misfortunes shake it from the heart of its cowardice,
And I have a boundless tendency for beautiful patience

27. Zaghf, whereby I make the most of its youth before it passes,
As if when I was generous, though troubles exhausted

28. My land, I was absent from its events,
And the soul is a soul of martyr whose constitution

29. Is a constitution nurtured by its core,
No glance of an angry frown turned towards me

30. Unless I placed an arrow in its pupil,
And if he were to gore the stars with his horn,

31. I would be the one to confront him with the bad omen of its counterpart,
And the glory of my soul, from a generous one, established a sanctuary

32. From which I became one of its branches,
O son of jasmine, from Ma'afir, by the One who made

33. Yazeed's palaces grander than its construction,
Your letter is most esteemed to me in my concern,

34. And your reply is most majestic from the darkness of its deprivation,
So surely there will emerge to you from the blossoms of love

35. Maidens of pure gratitude, melodious in its display,
Poetry's metres are free in its people,

36. Poetry is a slave among its servants,
It praises kings, and was also one of them,

37. And it is seen that poetry is one of its wolves,
Al-Farazdaq became its peer in its kingdom,

38. And fate flowed to it upon its paths.