1. Time refused to meet you except as an adversary,
So bare a sword of resolve against it, striking,

2. And do not meet it lamenting from darkness,
For time is no listener to one who comes complaining.

3. And avoid its sons as much as you are able, for they
Are scorpions of night that never stop stabbing.

4. And if out of ignorance you mingle with them, awake or hatch
A chick, that I may tell you of wonders most strange.

5. Long have I tested them, and their glittering line deceived me,
With a glance that turns the eye, lying.

6. When I came to know them, I knew accumulated troubles and calamities.
I kept company with men—would that I had been

7. Changed to a Zanj among them, and forged black!
I thought them shady, sheltered shade and garden,

8. But they were summer’s poison, piercing with thorns.
I suffered with them as roses suffer sneezes,

9. More deserving to meet palms that clap and slap!
They strove in my blood with effort, till it was as if

10. I, for the Romans, had roused up an army fighting.
Nor did a heavy fetter and shackles on my legs in darkness

11. Suffice them, causing calamities to be forgotten.
Matters there are which, were I to recount, their relation would be long,

12. And I could not contain them in the measures of verse, reckoning.
May God reward with good every sneak I saw

13. In Baghdad who walked the roads without stop, a thief.
From them I met no ill day, and never avoided

14. A kinsman or suddenly attacking foe.
And there followed in meanness an exultant enemy whose heart

15. Rejoiced at my injustice, though foiled in purpose.
Did he rejoice for other than inventing slander

16. And sending constantly the arrows of slander?
Let not enemies think that because of what transpired

17. I wavered or slackened my rope in discord.
Before me, al-Nu‘man suffered his captivity in prison

18. And was despoiled, though he had been a despoiler.
And the son of Dhu ‘l-Jaddayn lived in shackles a time,

19. Nights calling his tribe and the allied bands.
The ills he resolved stunned Dhuhl b. Shayban

20. With disasters that drive away the noble and pure of origin.
They took revenge with them on Chosroes’ spoils and still

21. Their cavalry return driving captives and slaves.
And had other than my tribe sought to wrong me,

22. I would have docked its private parts, and it would wander confounded, diminished.
Let it look, below me, upon a band of the virtuous,

23. Sublime when solitary, and piercing stars.

24. Their father—if I call them—is my father, and their ancestors
Are my ancestors, if men enumerate the fitting.

25. And of Abraham’s seed are all who kindle
Glory, donning the garments of greatness.

26. Would that one of them other than these drive them back!
Then time would wander abased, retreating.

27. O rider who crosses the waste, borne
On a lively she-camel leaping over the dune and thickets,

28. When you alight, camping in al-Ahsā’, neighboring
Kings whose abodes remain pure, unsullied,

29. Travel on to Jar‘ā’ in the north, for I have
An ardor for it that I yearn for and sport with.

30. Stop for a stop on the west road at its gate,
Where you will meet my family and kin.

31. You will meet kings like the ahlah whose abodes
Ever sought the heights and refused baseness.

32. If you come to Qurmis’ palace, you will find in it
The skulls of my people and days heavy with calamities.

33. Possessors of rule, crown, and office—that
Soared to the heights, traversing the stars.

34. Say to them, after greeting, words
That announce me to youth and graybeard alike:

35. “Ho, my people, the young man when
Time casts him forth calls his tribe, not strangers!

36. “Enough of sorrow that in Baghdad I stand
Alone, far from family, meeting each day wonders.

37. “My heart yearns for you—and I remember apart from you
Concerns I do not yearn for and trifles.

38. “So to plunge into them is easier for me, but more difficult
Is to remember circumstances that mingled misfortunes.

39. “There is no shame in the injustice of kings against the youth.
Ever victorious in the land has been the judgment of the sword.

40. “But the wrong done me by kinsmen—that I found
Hotter upon my heart, burning and flaming!

41. “O no! It is the naked ill, the cleaving wound, and it
Broke apart the necklaces and stripped away the ranks.

42. “Were it not for the Abbasid’s daughters, I would not
Incline to the abode of humiliation and feebleness.

43. “I had family through my family, and in riches,
Perishing. I met with a companion, companioned.

44. “But I fear for them that an enemy who has no wealth might see
In them war’s lights extinguished, gloomy.

45. “I loathe that they wake in other than my company,
So I wake to their disasters turned back on me.

46. “They wake having been married off either to some
Vile armored man who sees kindness as obliging poverty,

47. “Or the son of a lost and straying wretch
Called to unbelief by misguidance, a recluse.

48. “Like Nu‘m’s daughter, married off when
He slipped away in Sa‘d’s misfortune, fleeing,

49. “With the slightest bride price to a suitor in straits
While her father swallowed the burning coals.

50. “Had she woken in the house of Bakr or Taghlib,
No lowborn would have sought to court her.

51. “O Ibn Abi Rafa’, gently with them! Be
A father who perseveres in honoring them!

52. “Be patient, endure, lower your wing in mercy
To them, and do not frown on them, sullen.

53. “Beware lest you treat them with coldness, for I
See death walking barefoot, plunging, if you neglect them.

54. “If I leave them well, fortunate
Against the days, they will dwell among the piercing stars.

55. “Time will return to me after its passion,
Its cheeks spread in the dust repenting,

56. “As before me it came pleading to my father,
Having decided to flex its claws against him.

57. “For us is an unbroken custom from God—
To elevate us with favors and grant our wishes.

58. “Thanks to Him, then, beneficent, gracious to us,
Praise penetrating time, lasting.”