1. The lion's harbinger came to me after
The gatherings in Iraq implored a saying

2. So they said, “Take refuge in Ibn al-Zubayr,”
But God refused that I be shamed and the bugs triumphed

3. And I am a man whom, from the lute, severity
And in my mountains of Bakr and Taghlib, a restrainer

4. And God did not make al-Muhallab a knight
Rather the likes of al-Hudhayl are the knights

5. A brother of war, coming he is finely geared
And going he dives in the fray

6. He drags the slender steeds over the dunes
Prowling in its darkness what prowls

7. The tent pegs recoil in their sides
And they are, from the Shati, dishonored and dressed

8. On every spindle-shanked steed, shrunken
Its flesh melted away from it, accumulated

9. They claim a debt in Qudha’ah that did not exist
For the banners to confiscate it and the allies

10. They left the worshipers of God on the day they met Him
And in the soul from the spears of Taghlib, apprehension