1. The sword's judgment is most sagacious
When treaty-breaker or guide goes erratic

2. Of beasts and verdicts rendered below them
The tale of ruler and witnesses told

3. None thwarted who by the blade claimed protection
Nor from desires however prohibited swayed

4. You called to havoc when you called the foe
So you bared it while stars rose fortunate

5. And set to subdue the ample earth
With troops whose tread the land itself might cede

6. Far though the climes, had a warrior spanned them
Leveled their breadths, and nearly did exceed

7. Before his wind men's roads are blocked, behold
Heights whose flags for them have never bowed

8. Clad each soldier in a Rhagae robe
That vies in sheen with pooling water and is steel

9. To each force, no slope seems to its rider
Too steep for ascent, wherever he is viewed

10. If to wild colts' reins hands take hold
Near and far to them are leveled, made equal

11. Ill-starred the land whose inauspicious ascendant
Rules a heedless king made glad

12. When foes are kindled into flame, their fuel
Is logs awaiting the encounter's feud

13. They never from red or black refrained
And in them are steadfast thorns and roses

14. No patch of earth remains but over it
Are their dead, and fugitives they hunt, chide

15. As if crops whose hay their antelope consume
Some standing, some their sickles cut

16. So wondrous, how many their swords consume
Can one sensibly hope to lead their dark mass?

17. Nay! But who can restrain the hand of fate?
Who drives them, and who their witness provides?

18. Foes fear the sire his son, the son his father
And blossoms keep to blossoms their feud

19. A policy where kingship wisely meshes
Shows the noble lines how thrones hold

20. When al-Nasir of the Ashrafs takes his seat
All above the Nile the Nile's flood

21. His ambition diminishes all time before it
High resolve, seeking distance makes greater strides

22. Beyond count the kings who share his line
Fathers reckoned back, generations traced

23. In unbroken sequence, none but they
Kings the whole world has as their slaves

24. Lofty from birth, cradled as time itself
They tamed the wilds and ruled lands young

25. Theirs is all pride - praising them
Renews as time flows on ever novel

26. Deathless are those whose actions speak their nature
In lasting fame and memory fine

27. Theirs the pride - but above all their pride
Is Ahmad! Of prides none exceeds

28. A just king who no enemy deceives
Nor traps when prey is spied

29. Nay! Mightily seizes rights by force
Nor schemes to usurp what he is owed

30. These his riders, those his troops
Daily victories increase their tide

31. Envoys come from East and West to render them
Clear triumphs and conquests' gifts

32. O king of the world! Scion of its kings!
Who makes it begin and begin again

33. O you whose hands and fair deeds are
Necklaces on high necks and bracelets

34. Lighten your mass who have not in your pardon
Stumbled, fearing excess from you, greater

35. Whoever by fear of the sword is stopped
If penitent, let him never revert

36. For you are generous, and generosity is courage
You are courageous, and courage bounty

37. Two things I lament, each when alone
With me seems violent, hurts and bleeds

38. To lose Zubayd - Oh! All life is Zubayd!
If my will's aim shoots past me, then yearns

39. For what I never willed, stays my keenest want
Peace on the world! Tihama's spirit at rest!

40. The world relieved! And you are gone
Zubayd's loss is harsh - on men the test

41. When favors retract from them and decline
Dear God gather us soon by Ahmad

42. Return him safe! Say: healed, he'll rejoin!