1. O succor of servants, if the clouds are stingy
With rain for them, and they seek but find none,

2. He who secured servants with shining white gifts -
To meet them is hated, their looks give disdain -

3. Witnessed yesterday what they'd not seen before
In their time, nor in times they were told about:

4. The pagans killed a martyr of our number,
And wished that they tore him utterly apart.

5. With his noble blood, blood was spilled,
Thus does the rash destroy the forebearing.

6. They killed him fettered, else had he not been overpowered,
Had he reared his steed's back they'd not subdued him.

7. Men met their death on the pavement, all of them
Noble in their father's line, high of repute.

8. Indian swords and the swords of Zurq abandoned them
As carrion - oh, misery on the day they met!

9. We saw the vizier like an enraged lion Opening his jaws at that but not this.
When they spied the doves they despaired,

10. As he bore down on them, their faces turned pale.
We saw him burning like an unsheathed blade,

11. Thus we testify that the blade is his brother.
The stallion darted off, panic-stricken, driven

12. To frenzy by the horrors that affrighted him.
Many died of fright because of him, while many

13. He long harried, but they feared him not.
And how many days his prisoner, and his slain?

14. Deaf to those begging his ear, to their cries oblivious.
A captive in fetters, trapped in his bonds,

15. Succor for one who knocked whose mouth decay sealed.
That until the battle summoned and the people

16. Saw in him what filled them with greatest awe.
A fallen lion because of his cub's greenness,

17. Had they known his lair, they would have excused him.
They stood in fright from him but when

18. They saw virtue itself incline from him, they hoped.
And so, as long as the Amīr was a child,

19. By my life, how aptly they likened him!
A branch ever nourished on the date palm of glory

20. Many branches feeding from it luxuriant.
But when he passed nine and three years,

21. He was too tall for them to limit with similes.
O elect of noble chiefs, o prince of the world,

22. You whom good fortune graced, we hope in you.
My fate gifted me with an age I see

23. In which no confidant avails, no escape.
Had my prime of youth been gifted with that,

24. You'd have seen me excel all mankind in glory!
My thanks you know, and my praise of you

25. Among people, they know it and have heard it.
Except that old age made my back hunch,

26. A heavy burden, hateful and detested.
By my life, I have no lord but you, o victorious king,

27. On earth whom I wish for and hope in!