1. Abu Bakr Al-Abdi, you have been wronged by one harmful
So protect the secrets of poetry from violation

2. The sly wolf has crept around you, so beware
The setting of propriety, from taking what warrants abandonment

3. Al-Barrad did not conceal anything from you or his actions
And you know the news of the smooth and the coarse

4. So if you sheathe the blades without him
The blacks have bared swords for shedding blood

5. How many verses were like the proud female ostrich
But became the blind man's stick, laughable to his mind

6. Pens weep when copying them
Their meanings die laughing over him

7. So be the arbiter of his thefts, my friend
For the news told about that is not to be judged

8. No wonder the first part shone
With flashes that illuminated the last part

9. So enough of easy nature and talent
For both his rigid mind and composition

10. His mention endured like the eternal
A wondrous poem flowed like a secret in deep doubt

11. So do not be fooled by a full moon I composed
For he has no part in it but threading beads

12. Rhymes like the winds have not ceased
To facilitate the means of fraud and hypocrisy

13. It has the heart of a river that split the folds of flowers
And the prime of a horizon that narrowed the pleats of love

14. I adorned it with the charm of every crowned one
With what was gentle weaving and pleasing stitching

15. And it had a Joseph-like splendor
That lacerated the liver of enemies instead of a blade

16. So he launched a raid against it
With pens sharpened for slashing

17. And he distorted what he claimed, misleading me
With wound upon wound until discouraged

18. Oh my sorrow for the white faces darkened
By the swords of blackened words, dissolved

19. The hearts of poetry stood throbbing for them
While its rhymes weep laughing over him

20. I ignited for them the fire of my talent
And was as I always was, excellent in stitching

21. And how he wished me gone though the expanse was between us
I said to him: You still live in narrowness

22. Leave the sky's punishment for its winds' concerns
And do not be fooled, ostrich, by fluttering

23. He stayed in Egypt as long as he stayed then left
And the hands of greed reached you seeking the kingdom

24. He assumed, though I don't know if he rode the heavens evenly
Mocked, carried by fate, or on a ship

25. And I remember him as moist figs, did he escape safely
From what the register contains of fraud?

26. If he says longing took his heart,
How so, when he did not free himself from the shackles of idolatry?

27. He has nothing but false claims, his trinkets
Dazzled without currency or test

28. So ask him about poetry which is his knowledge
As he said: Do not judge me for what I relate

29. You will find from the daughters of poetry every chaste one
He kidnapped—oh pity the amateur in composing!

30. He brought them to you unchaste after virginity
So do not trust them for publishing or dispersing

31. And he dressed them in the worst attire, singing
With a jaw free from distortion, though not freed

32. The wise say upon hearing him:
The doorman's hand cast you aside, babbling nonsense

33. While we thought baking lowly work
And did not believe leadership was in baking

34. Oh king of literature, denounce him for their sake
If you wish to last in reign

35. And do not believe trade is his concern
Other than that, neither in cloaks gone nor fabrics sold