1. If poetry is not infused by its Lord with magic
By my life, rhythms are useless, and poetry is not understood

2. After revelation, nothing remains from the news of heaven
To earth except poetry, the greatest miracle

3. Binding every soul that undertakes its burden
The trusted Spirit has descended with it, good tidings

4. If it is not tilting the scales of minds
It is nothing but nonsense, or it resembles nonsense

5. If it is not the revelation of ecstasy in the soul
Then chewing on it is like chewing on rock

6. I see every measure except innate talent in the youth
Only increases poetry’s loss in its weight

7. If the rhymes are not of an easy nature
Then it is no glory to cross the sea for them

8. I saw meanings like doves that would not alight
Except on eloquent or sweet words like a river

9. And like a garden that does not incline towards non-Arabic
And takes nothing but the eloquent for its nest

10. So woe to the meaning if words betray it
And alas to it, alive, it has indeed inhabited the grave

11. I see, and it is truly worthy of acceptance what I see
That poetry has surpassed prose in two things

12. A weaving like al-Buhturi’s weaving and wisdom
Rivalling what al-Mutanabbi therewith led astray

13. We have come upon an era where we find naught
In its slackness except tears or little

14. Blinded, rhymes have indeed gone astray as guides
And seen nothing but defects in every rhyme

15. And suspicious of poetry and prose itself
He herded thorns in a barren wasteland from them

16. They were called to literature, it and its people
To God from the claim of its nonsense, innocent

17. He swooped like a young bird lowering its wings
And he sought to emulate by its flight the eagle

18. But disability made him sit, so he became angry
As if he against the predecessors had a blood-feud

19. So the mistake of one whose craftsmanship's aim was true
Is like a bleary-eyed criticising the sun and censuring the moon

20. He shouts and calls for modernism and his partisans
While neither few nor many rally to his land

21. Should I discard my tune to be condemned for his tune?
If so, I would be content after my faith with blasphemy

22. May your father be sacrificed for you, who gave birth to you, o wife
And carried in her pregnancy shame and sin

23. Do you reject something whose taste you have savoured
And call to something you have no news of?

24. By this the superiority of the existent appears
Likewise the merit of the opposite is inferred from its opposite

25. It is poetry whatever Muhammad has accomplished from it
Circling minds with its sorcery like wine

26. Rumbling, weaving words full of winks
Strong, firm ties binding it fast

27. If he sheds a tear for the one whose wishes faded
The branch of hopes with him becomes verdant again

28. Poetry’s youth, its leaders have given him primacy
And pretend no excuse in turning down his request

29. So from every word he chooses its pleasures
And from every splendid meaning he milks the virgins

30. He splits the words of the trite with subtleties
Into the settled meanings, enriching them with traces

31. He called her by whom without him the sword is a devotee
So he awakened a people whose slumberous illness spread

32. He watered a hope in them and kindled a zeal
By God he has watered! By God he has kindled!

33. If the people’s poet does not alert his people
Then it is better he make his people suffer

34. I see poetry as breaths the youth dispenses
With which he lights and rekindles coals

35. And blows in them a spirit for the dead nation
So it slips out from the dormancy of its heedlessness