1. After they migrated from India,
We journeyed five nights until Najd welcomed us,

2. How excellent is India and the land wherein is India!
Yet from elsewhere than it came the distance and the far reach;

3. And from elsewhere than it there came one with shifted spear-points,
Clad in Busiri mantle, a renowned knight;

4. Now she whom I diverted from the frequenters of assemblies
Is angered against me, angered even as they were angered;

5. The sons of Shammas ibn Layl came, and yet but dreams
And valorous merit brought them and the numbered progeny;

6. For hapless is he who makes them his enemies,
While fortune aids whomever they befriend;

7. They lead dreams very far when they are provoked,
And when wrathful the watchful valor comes, and merit;

8. Condemn them not, neither revile your father's father,
Neither block up the place they have blocked;

9. Those are a folk who if they build, build nobly,
And if they pledge themselves bind themselves solemnly;

10. And if bounty is shown them they give again increase,
And if they give they injure not, nor keep back aught;

11. And when their chieftain speaks aloud concerning any happening
Of fate, 'Give back the merit of your dreams,' they say;

12. And though absent from Layl an envier gnash his teeth at them,
Young growths have not twisted the hair of their chins;

13. How not, when I know them not to have abandoned you
Against any mighty chieftain, nor twisted at all?

14. Obeyed in the deadly foray, searching the darkness,
Built up by their fathers, and by heritage a tower;

15. So let him who will attain the lofty pinnacle of Sa'd
Make haste unto their surpassing meed, resolute, unfaltering;

16. When he runs his course he equals not his driving-gear
Nor can his pace exhaust his horse however fast;

17. When he saw the glory of peoples betrayed he roused them
To their own glory, what time he saw that that was the effort;

18. And the sons of Sa'd blame me concerning themselves,
Yet naught have I said save what Sa'd already witnessed;

19. It has a source of olden time in Urá al-Ghamr, still flowing clearly,
Its unpaid debts like the trailing of the burd after rain;

20. Empty after its households and abiding age-long,
As though the present spectators had not sought enjoyment in it of old;

21. As though the halting-places did not know them with long sojourn,
Amid them graybeards and youths, smooth-cheeked, with flowing hair;

22. They are the sons of Sayyar son of 'Amr son of Jabir,
Men whose dreams have swelled, and for them is valor;

23. If the peoples engage in conflict some day over their dykes
Good breeding and family escutcheon forbid them;

24. So let him whose endeavor falls short of what they have done
Bind on for all time, like them he has bound;

25. Their father devoted the reason of kings unto bounty unstintingly,
Nor had they aught of the thing he lavished save the effort;

26. He devoted the prices of kings and brought them,
Nor did he flinch from inquiry or importunity;

27. The portage of what an unjust aggressor wrought,
The portage of a realm the like of which was never seen;

28. They bore the thousand which a tyrant set running;
And drove back the horses roving at liberty;

29. Those are a people who if they build, build nobly,
And if they pledge themselves bind themselves solemnly;

30. And if bounty is shown them give again increase,
And if they give they injure not, nor keep back aught;

31. And when their chieftain speaks aloud concerning any happening
Of command, 'Give back the merit of your dreams,' they say;

32. Those are a folk none shall replace if all effort be counted
And none attain their reward or gain their palm;