1. A lightning flashed or a white flash rived,
Or an echo's return, or a blond torrent roared.

2. Lo! it was a battle I gained in a moment's time
Against Arabs on the day of Al-Kathib and its tribes.

3. A Taghlibi fell in love and it conquered my heart, so it coiled
Around a burning coal from the agony of the heart inside.

4. You know, my steeds, what the camping brought closer,
With your neighing, O daughter of Wail!

5. We repaid in the day of Marj another like it,
And a branch we watered from the bite of a honey-making bee.

6. In it, the lightning kept flashing until I thought it
Beckoning towards the star Al-Ruba with its fingers.

7. Al-Ruba whom the hands of clouds clothed
With locks yellow above white locks.

8. I stayed up watching the stars and I starred
Risings for the shepherds other than settings.

9. And every flower gaped its mouth towards it
To each udder full for the cloud.

10. And the armies of rain passed leisurely as though they were
Armies of Abyssinia with polished blades.

11. And the greenery hovered in the thickness of its meteors
Like the swell of a sea topped with twilights.

12. You imagine in it the blossoms of stars to be narcissi
On the bank of a valley seeking water from the galaxy.

13. And you glimpse in its setting the toppling
Of a tottering throne with legs bent.

14. And you reckon it a falcon fallen on its back
Upon Al-Thurayya's nest above the red of Al-Hawasil.

15. And the full moon in it a pool and around it
Stars like the risings of fluttering pigeons.

16. As though the darkness were my concern and its stars
My tears pouring down in pity for the age of evils.

17. The stars of Al-'Ulyaa fell except a few
And they missed what every reasonable being obtains.

18. And I found myself in the latter folk; when you glance at them,
You realize ignorance is one of merits.

19. And nothing is good in this lowly world
Unless aided by the goodness of beginnings.

20. I see the red above the plateau crowded
So I cry with my eyes for the humiliation of that plateau.

21. And writers wept when they were told, “Forge!”
From their slowness, the letters' breasts shed tears.

22. And the bearer of jurisprudence whose heart has not seen God
Thinks the religion is memorizing issues.

23. And the spear-bearer who rode above his lance
With it wooing the living with amorous verses.

24. They fell for glory without me and I was left without them
Pursuing wishes in the gardens of futilities.

25. It is nothing but a most valiant resolve
And a soul that refused me the morals of dishonor.

26. And an intellect which, had I come with its truth unto the Pleiades,
They would then receive me with the welcome of warriors.

27. How can I be content with the abode of ignorance as a dwelling
When the Milky Way is one of my houses?

28. And my patience with pure harm from the lowly
And my glory, my sword, and authority withering?

29. And when the sea of eloquence was confounded by my intellect
And I flooded the celestial sphere with some of my streams,

30. I hastened to the best of all mankind with every ingenious type
Of praise my fluency did not fail to draw out.

31. And I did not cast it until I landed its luggage
Upon a king among them, most excellent steeds.

32. And I almost reached, through the superiority of speech, silently
Though it displeased my enviers the extent of every speaker.