1. Does he chide me for shedding tears when the slender branched trees despair of my reform?
Passion has possessed me after obstinacy, and passion has pleased me after pride.

2. The languorous, large-eyed gazelles intoxicate me;
The does with anklets on a wounded foot; the young women with well arranged tresses.

3. Every wild cow longed for your abode and I reached it at daybreak on my she-camel.
Her howdah became too strait for her when it had been roomy at the riding station.

4. The zephyrs of the morn brought me to you in an agreeable company or fortune brought me to you with a good guide.
A brother who for twenty years whitened his temples in sincere advice to me from a clear eye.

5. Upright columns started marching from al-Rasa'if to the abode of Life when the son of a farmer lived in it.
When a lord avails me in a land I ride the she-dromedaries of success towards him.

6. And I have, in every land, debts against my foes in pledges of spears.
When the horsemen of my people turned to look back and we met at dawn.

7. By it a party of horsemen flee to the streams amidst parties too proud to cry for quarter.
The stoutest cavalier, even if they are stout, are the lightest-armed horsemen in attacking.

8. The goblet of Tryphon for the Prince's sword if kings vie for draining goblets!
With the widest of them in having wide waterskins for a valley's drink and the most abundant in pouring forth the waterskin's contents.

9. And its leader towards the streams all dusty, the daughters of the racetrack under the sons of battle!
His pool darkened though the air was clear, his evening though the day was bright.

10. And every disgraced man in Life weeps over the mighty, rods of the book-boards.
They are the origin of this branch whose knolls throve, and the fountainhead of bounty.

11. The eggs' survival is the rats' lifetime, and the sword's descent lifetimes of pollen.
The sword of the Prince, the decree sought in my praise of my people in spite of myself!

12. Though I have patience for afflictions I shall not be patient with my peers among whom I console myself.
And if I proposed to my Time to be your ransom, O sons of mine, I would be proposing what I wish!